


Raptora online, Valkyrie online

by Bonbonbourbon



Series: Red Rockets and Glowing Light Streams [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, RoVo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2018-12-17 19:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonbonbourbon/pseuds/Bonbonbourbon
Summary: Sequel to TDatG.Overwatch is back and both Fareeha and Angela have honored the call, joining its ranks. That was the easy part. The hard part is what comes after and this is the story of that and all the little things that happen along the way.





	1. Strike Team

“Everybody take cover!”

Angela couldn’t help but grouse under her breath as she shimmied herself behind yet another crumbling pillar, pulling aside one of their own bleeding agents with her. The man wheezed, ribs broken and still in the process of being mended by Angela. It was hard enough to heal a person, worse when they were in the middle of a battle.

“Stay still.” She commanded.

He nodded quickly, eyes practically begging her to work faster.

Anything to stop the pain probably.

She clicked her tongue as she bandaged him up. Young and spry, and far too green to be in here with them to be operating a rescue mission at this caliber. The warehouse smells of smoke and burning circuitry, mixed in with organic scents of sweat, dirt and a heavy dose of musk.

War cries and pained screams reverberate through the open space.

Angela shook her head minutely.

“Must violence always be the solution?” She muttered to herself.

"I'm afraid so, darling." Mccree said from where he knelt a few feet away, behind his makeshift cover against the gunfire lighting up in their direction. He chewed on his cigar, the butt dancing up and down from the work of his teeth as he reloaded bullets into the steel chamber of his revolvers. With a flick of a wrist, the chamber snapped back in place. Mcree tipped his hat her way. A gracious smile adorned his lips. "Well, gotta go."

He stood up abruptly and fired six shots. Angela heard half-uttered garbled noises of surprise and the sounds of bodies, both of metal and of flesh, hitting the ground. She finished patching the young agent up and pushed him in the direction of the exit.

“Leave and make sure the saved civilians are alright.”

He saluted her as he left, as fast as he could, other arm above his head as an extra guard.

Mccree was laughing in the background, still on the high of his accurate hits.

"This old dog still got it." Mccree cackled out in unrestrained delight, the southern drawl in his words stretching out the humor in his inflection. He side-rolled to another makeshift cover and fired a few more bullets, sparing a moment to glance in her direction. "Best you be off as well. Pillar's all holed now, Mercy. It won't hold much longer."

She flinched as a bullet nicked the side of the concrete and near her ear. Her eyes flicked downwards at the sizable chunk of concrete that was ripped off by the blast. Mccree was right. Angela gritted her teeth and scanned the area, the hard-light visor coming down from her halo giving her quick reads on the area.

Two Talon agents on the left behind the upturned desk.

Five local agents huddled in the west corner. Doing good work it seemed.

A couple more Talon agents were running around on the top railings.

Chased by Winston. Oh dear.

Neural links connecting her halo to her senses allowed her to highlight Winston without voice command. All vital signs normal and from the way the agents were fleeing than fighting back, there was no reason for her to focus her efforts there.

One of them had a shattered visor and she could see the terror in his eyes as ran.

She couldn't blame them (she too, would be deathly afraid of a 350 pound Gorilla chasing after her).

"Whoops! Missed again!"

Angela turned around, suppressing a groan when she saw that Lena was yet again antagonizing enemies she really should not be engaging with – a couple of Talon agents armed in their own version of Russia's syvatogors. She was sprinting and zipping all around them, teleporting here, there and everywhere, firing her little pistols at them from all directions.

The svyatogor's hands were swiping around without much inflicted damage (the bullets from her pistols not powerful enough to do anything more than minimal damage).

It looked like they were trying to swat a fly away.

Her grip on her staff grew tighter as she dashed over to Lena.

How many times did she have to tell that woman not to face tanks on her own?

Honestly.

Angela shifted from a sprint to flight, connecting healing streams at various local Overwatch agents that had followed to complete this mission, one after the other to reach the exuberant woman faster. Her face pulled into a deeper frown as she caught the tickled grin adorning Lena's face. Angela aimed her staff at a local Overwatch agent just beyond Lena while watching Lena's movements. She flicked on her healing stream right on time to catch Lena by the waist as the woman materialized right in front of her.

Mid-flight she turned with Lena still in her arms to deliver a well-placed bullet to the shoulder joint of the svyatogor following them, momentarily incapacitating it. She felt a small burst of pride.

Mccree wasn’t the only good shot around.

Her wings splayed out naturally to slow their approach to the local ally as they reached him, spreading to its fullest at the end to achieve a perfect stop. Her heels did not even skid two inches on the ground below. She flicked the healing stream off, sent the local agent a smile as he grinned back appreciatively at his healed wounds, before she looked sternly at Lena. Lena simply grinned, a grin that started wide, but faltered as she did not change expression.

"Angie-" They both duck as another bullet comes flying their way. They crawl to larger cover. "I had to. The captured civilians needed some time to get out - I had to distract."

"Literally anyone else would have been better than you at that." Angela said tersely and conjured a needle-nosed plier out of hard-light to pull out the bullet lodged in Lena's arm. Lena winced, but did not move. Not even when she applied the nanite cream. At this point she usually would squirm somewhat - guess guilt was a powerful stopper. "Where is Pharah?"

She didn't wait for Lena's answer.

Angela switched to the personal commlink between her and Fareeha.

"Pharah. Can you hear me?"

Beyond the labored breathing of her girlfriend, Angela could hear the sound of whizzing rockets and the whistle of high winds. She looks upwards and beyond the panels of the warehouse rooftop, through one of the many holes that riddled it. She spotted Fareeha flying high, shooting rockets at elevated drones.

Two of them explode as a rocket hits - a third went crashing sideways in a ball of fire from splash damage.

"Pharah: Reporting for duty." Fareeha finally said between grunts, an edge of humor tickling her words. "I hear you loud and clear. What's the status, Mercy?"

Lena interjected, voice bustling through the group link channel.

"Oh it's not a big deal-" One of the svyatogor's readied a heavy shot, the barrel of their large gun glowing red hot. Angela gritted her teeth as she strong armed Lena once again, but now with the addition of the weight of the local agent at her other arm. She held both of them tightly by their waists- "But there's a few svyatogor's. Maybe you could help-"

She pushed off and the force of her arm digging into Lena's stomach from the hurried movement sent the breath flying out of her. She ignored the strangled cry and turned on her stream, blue and roiling, at Mccree's direction. Her buffing stream pulled all three them out of the way just in time, right before the svyatogor's laser powered shots shredded the last bits of their previous defense.

She heard the sharp intake of breath Fareeha took from twenty-five feet above like it was right next to her due to her earpiece.

It sounded both alarmed and angry.

Her eyes instinctively peered upwards and locked onto Fareeha's frame as they finally land near Mccree. She witnesses Fareeha dodge an oncoming missile with a twirl in the air, before she fired a concussive blast straight at the drone.

Dead on. The last drone is eliminated.

Fareeha though was sent hurtling downwards from the blowback. Angela's eyes widen and she was scrambling to figure out what to do when her creased brows crease further. She slackens when she notices Fareeha had cranked her engines to increase her freefall into a lightning fast trajectory downwards.

Fareeha apparently, hadn't lost control like she had initially assumed.

The woman maneuvered through one of the many holes of the broken paneling of the warehouse rooftop, flipped herself right ways up and slammed the head of the closest svyatogor with an armored hand in her quick descent. Not even crashing a hand to the steel head of the svyatogor slowed her fall and Fareeha landed onto the ground powerfully on a bent knee, bringing the svyatogor down with her by her unrelenting grip on its head.

One svyatogor down, but there are three more right behind.

"It's hiiiigh-"

Angela's attention shifted.

Mccree was standing on top of a crumbled wall, hand at the ready at his waist, hovering above his holster, fingers dancing. An excited grin was on his face, and not even the shade of his hat could conceal the wild and hungry glint in his eyes.

"Noon."

She heard six shots fire and the svatogor's stagger, their joints targeted by the shots. Still, they were functional, even after the well-placed shots. All three robots continued to close in, despite their hobbled joints. Mccree grumbled, the low tones of his disappointment worming through the commlink. He dragged out a long sigh and it is a guttural sound.

"All out of bullets.” He mumbled glumly, “Pharah, guess you should take it from here."

"...Noted."

Fareeha rose from the crater in which she made, up to her full height and turned, nudging the fallen svyatogor away with a foot as she did so. She stood strong in a power stance, upright and undaunted, the panels of all her rockets all opened.

"Stand down."

The personnel piloting the svyatogors all ignored her and continued to inch forward. It is a faint, but Angela picked up the tiny escape of breath, the almost silent whistle that expelled from Fareeha's mouth through the static of the commlink.

"Fine."

And the word had never been spoken with more tired regret. Angela’s mouth curved in sympathy.

Fareeha squared up further, tightening her core and clenching her fists. She looked small, dwarfed by the massive svyatogors that easily towered over her. And yet, Angela felt pity for the men and women who helmed the svyatogor, and no fear at all, for Fareeha.

Fareeha's voice was barely above a murmur as she spoke one last time.

"Rocket barrage incoming."

And red rockets started to sail and the world lit up in fire and flames.

\------------------------------

It was cooler outside than it was inside the old warehouse. The air was fresh, the grass beneath her feet soft and the sun was thankfully obscured by resting clouds. Angela breathed in deeply through her nostrils, the smell of fresh dirt and antiseptic filling her nose as she continued to work.

The woman she was helping flinched.

Angela paused, hands stilling over a tender wound. Her head tilted upwards and she smiled sweetly.

"I know it hurts, but I need you to keep still." Angela said softly, giving the young woman's hand a squeeze while staring into her green eyes. "Can you do that for me?"

She nodded and Angela took a moment to really look at her. The woman is young, younger than Lena, with cropped hair and a metal piercing on her right nostril. She flinched again when Angela pressed the cotton swab over the wound. There is a slight blush on her face now and Angela knows better than to bring up her weakness again.

She continued to work like nothing had happened.

Angela also ignored the people around them. The other folks in the town who had gathered, whispering under their breaths, words still loud enough for her to pick up. Words that were all about them. About Overwatch. Winston. Lena. Mccree.

Her.

About Angela “Mercy” Ziegler, the doctor that dissapeared one day. They cannot believe she was actually there and continue to stare like she was a mirage about to fade once more from existence.

She finished her work easily and gave the young woman one last comforting smile.

“There we go.” She said in a lilting tone, eyes crinkling. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Just redress the wound every day in the morning and night and you should be fine in a week.”

"Okay. I uh... Thanks a lot Mercy." The woman stuttered out as she rose up. "And uh..."

The young woman was rocking on her heels, eyes flickering off to the side. Angela cocked her head. The woman scratched at her nose with a crooked finger while she squirmed in place. At one point she dared to glance back at Angela and Angela immediately smiled wider, an invitation to speak her mind.

It works.

"Just want to say that you're really pretty."

Angela blinked, the words taking a moment to register. Then she laughed, airy and appreciative. She reached out and held the now bashful woman's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Thank you." She said openly and as sincere as can be. "That was sweet of you to say."

With a full blown blush on her cheeks now, the woman nodded then hurriedly walked away. Adorable, she thought to herself and picked herself up from the ground. She wondered if Fareeha would be remotely jealous of the interaction. She would tell her later. It would be cute if she did, especially if she did that small mumble of defensiveness. Angela dusted her hands on her knees and then took a sweeping look around.

Winston was conversing with local Overwatch agents.

Lena on the other hand was playing with some of the children, and quite the unfair game of tag.

Mccree and Pharah were nowhere to be found. Angela guessed that they had either retired in one of the convoy vehicles or were helping some of the other local agents scout the area for survivors. On the Talon side. They had been lucky this time and had no significant casualties on their side or on part for the civilians who had been taken hostage earlier.

Her gaze finally settled on the old warehouse.

It was in shambles now, dilapidated and in a heavy state of disrepair - much like the rest of the factory. The facilities inside, altered from a normal steel-making factory to one that pumped out machinery for Talon, was destroyed for the most part. There were no expressions of sadness to be found however on any of the residents from the prospect of having to rebuild the factory. Their faces instead displayed large shows of happiness and relief. A few were crying tears of joy.

Finally, after so long, Talon had been ousted from their small factory town.

It was a humble place, this town. Quaint. Angela imagined that the people here worked from dusk till dawn and no longer, able to retire home at a decent time to eat a warm meal with their family. Life was slow and idyllic. Not much money to go around, but enough to survive. It was a simple life, but a good one.

At least, until Talon came.

"Tell us what you know, goddamn it!"

Angela turned quickly at the source of the commotion, heartrate spiking when she saw the crowd and the glimpse of steel-toed boot crashing down on a limp body. She ran towards the crowd and shoved passerbys to get to the middle. On the floor is a bloodied Talon agent - a higher up if the clothes he wore were any indication. The other subdued Talon agents were screaming, and the comrades of the local Overwatch agent who had struck the man were holding him back by the arms.

Before he was completely stopped, he got another kick in, bashing the fallen agent on the head.

"Enough!"

The roars of the crowd and the chaos that had ensued seized immediately from her outburst. Everyone became eerily silent and no one was willing to look her in the eye as she walked towards the grievously injured man to access the damage.

She got to work immediately, tending at his wounds.

"There's no need to heal him." She hears from behind her, probably from said agent who had beaten the man senseless in the first place. "He ain't worth it."

She kept working, healing his wounds until all that was left was smooth skin.

Only then did she turn.

The agent was still bristling. Angela thinks and filed through her memories. Her eyes flicker as she remembered.

"Lieutenant Khan." Her words are delivered crisply. Commanding. "I never want to see such behavior ever again, do you understand? It is not becoming, and certainly not how Overwatch should operate. Let's not repeat past mistakes."

Khan shook his head in disgust, scoffing again.

"Shut up. The strike team was called as backup, and we only did so because we know first-hand how terrible these people are." He feinted a threatening move forwards, scowling further when Angela failed to move from where she was rooted - between them. "We had surveilled them for months and saw the atrocities they did. No one would miss them. They're all scum.”

Angela narrowed her eyes. Her grip on her staff tightened.

Her wings splayed out in accordance with her fury.

"And you are not? Even though you are conducting yourself in a manner not unsimilar to them?"

He faltered at that, face scrunching up as he digested her words.

"...It's not like they didn't deserve it." he finally muttered out.

Angela shook her head and sighed.

"Regardless, Lieutenant Khan. Your actions were undoubtedly cruel-"

"You don't get it!" He roared, cutting her off. He stalked forward over to her and Angela readies herself for a clash if it came to that. He rummaged his pocket and pulled out some sort of artifact. He waved it in her face. "We found this little thing here and we _know_ it means something and that man-" He points an accusatory finger at the Talon higher-up-"must _know_ something. He's just not talking and we are just trying to know what he knows and end whatever madness they're up to. Is that _so_ wrong?!"

Khan was breathing heavily, heaving at the chest. He looked angry, but more so, he looked broken. Angela pursed her lips, her anger seeping away, replaced with compassion and something softer.

"Lieutenant..." She said once more with a sigh. "Please... That's enough."

"Yeah, Lieutenant. That's enough."

A voice repeated from behind her. Angela's eyes widened and her blood ran cold as she became hyper-aware that fingers had pulled out her gun out of her holster. She turned around, but not fast enough. The gun is held up at her. The crowd panicked immediately, giving them a wide berth due to the brandished gun. The Talon agent waved it around like a threat, the handcuffs on him now dangling only from one wrist. He then centered it past her and straight onto Khan.

"Guess the tables have turned, huh? I bet I can kill at least you before I'm taken out."

Angela treaded backwards a few steps. Her eyes flickered over to Khan. He was livid next to her, eyes belying rage and shock, a snarl marring his entire face. He caught her glance and his face looked downright accusatory.

"This is your fault." He hissed at her.

The Talon agent sent a warning shot into the air.

"Don't talk amongst yourselves!"

Khan cracked his neck and flexed his fingers.

"Don't worry, there won't be much talking anymore."

Angela's eyes widened and she sought to grab him. She was too slow to catch him however and Khan continued his charge forward, roughly pushing her to the side with an arm while his other arm reached down to his holster. Angela struggled to keep upright from the push, a flood of adrenaline entering her veins as she heard the cocking of a gun and saw Khan curl his fingers around his own gun. More screams from the crowd flooded the vicinity.

_No, no, no, no-_

Khan's lunge forward was aptly stopped by a stiff grip on the back of his collar, ripping his backwards.

She heard the click of another gun, followed by a gulp.

Angela blinked. Fareeha was holding Khan by the scruff of his neck, decked in full armor and smelled the familiar scent of cheap tobacco and ash wafting from somewhere past the two. She stepped a little to the left and spotted Mccree, keeping the Talon higher up hostage with a barrel to the temple.

"Y'know, when the lady said enough. I think she meant in general." Mccree drawled as he so kindly removed her gun from the Talon agent’s possession. He tossed it to her and she caught it, swiftly placing it back in her holster. "How'd you get free anyways, sweetheart?"

The Talon higher up said nothing.

"Let me go!" Khan yelled from where he was, squirming under Fareeha's tight grip.

Fareeha relinquished her hold on him after a few moments more, when the man had slackened somewhat. Khan, anger still festering however, immediately swiveled on his foot to deliver a right hook square on Fareeha's chest. The clang of his metal glove to Fareeha's chest plate was loud. It had been a hard hit.

Yet Fareeha did not even flinch.

She took a step forward to loom over Khan, no worse for wear. At where he stood, Khan could probably see Fareeha's unflinching eyes - always so serious and always glinting in an almost dangerous manner like it always was when she was on a mission. There was probably not an ounce of amusement in her expression.

Judging from the way Khan gulped nervously, Angela guessed she was right.

"Stand down."

The tone in which Fareeha delivered the command left no room for questions.

Khan withered under the intensity that was Fareeha- no, Pharah.

"He's... He's not a good person." He spouted one last time feebly, a last ditch effort to prove that he was not in the wrong. "You understand, right?"

Fareeha simply looked at him.

"No. Beating up a man when they are down... That is not justice. That is not how we should operate."

He shriveled further at that explanation and nodded.

"Right. I understand..."

"...Good." Fareeha said, then side-stepped him. She gave him a small pat on the shoulder as she passed him. “Be at ease, soldier. I know you are better than that.”

Fareeha then stopped in front of her. She stood tall, head tilted slightly upwards so Angela could meet her eyes from beneath the visor. The professional veneer Fareeha had on cracked, if only a sliver. The lines around her jaw softened somewhat and there was a twinkle of worry residing deep in her brown eyes. "Are you alright, Mercy?"

The question was spoken softly, but the concern in them undeniable. It was as crisp as the morning air in December back in Zurich, cutting through all else.

Angela smiled.

"Yes. Don’t worry, Pharah. I am fine."

Fareeha was tight-lipped as she digested her answer, eyes searching hers to ensure that it was not some conceived lie to dispel any worries she might have had. When she was satisfied with what she saw she gave a resolute nod.

“Good.” She said and nothing more.

As taciturn as ever. As she usually was when on the job.

Angela had quickly learned that Fareeha at work and Fareeha during off-hours were two vastly different people, and she was no exception to her change in demeanor. Especially now as co-workers.

(Though, she could still spot that teensy bit of warmth directed at her)

“Hey Pharah.” Mccree yelled, bringing the attention to him. The injured Talon agent was in handcuffs, held in place by two other local agents beside him. Two sets of handcuffs around his wrists this time. “Apparently this man knows something right? You down for a round of good cop, bad cop?”

And just like that the morsel of warmth in Fareeha's eyes disappeared.

“Certainly.” Fareeha said with a nod, professional demeanor back in full force. Her eyes then flickered downwards to meet Angela's. “I’ll be off now. Until later.”

Angela nods.

“Good luck, Pharah.”

The crowd that formed around the commotion dispersed at that moment, the action having already ended and not wanting to stay when all that remained was a tired Angela and an ashamed Lieutenant Khan.

\------------------------------

The convoy vehicle was rickety and old. Lena was sleeping, curled up next to Winston's side, using his arm as a large, fuzzy bolster. She is snoring lightly. Winston himself was preoccupied with whatever was shining on his tablet - most likely conversing with Athena or with other agents back at headquarters.

Fareeha and Mccree were in the other convoy vehicle.

Lieutenant Khan was in this one.

The local agents were escorting them back to base.

"Mercy?" Khan said as they went over a rather large bump. He was swaying from the movements of the vehicle. Angela lifted her head from staring at her lap, giving him her attention. He pursed his lips, his chin crinkling from the gesture. He scratched the back of his head. "I'm sorry about earlier. It was reckless... and cruel."

Angela sighed and played with her fingers.

"It was." She said and Khan winced. Angela chewed her bottom lip. "But I understand."

"... You do?"

There is skepticism in his tone.

She nodded in spite of not wanting too. Superficial wounds or those of the physical kind she healed all the time. The sprain of an ankle? No problem. Shrapnel embedded three inches deep in the torso? Mended in two minutes flat. Stomach and other pierced organs stitched up in a jiffy.

The hard part was the emotional scars left after.

She could heal every section of a person, or replace the sections that could not be saved for the most part. However the trauma and what they carried from those experiences? Whatever had caused those wounds to be created in the first place?

That was not something she could fix.

That took time and care that was difficult to provide.

Who knew how long it would be until all those civilians would sleep soundly without night terrors about men and women, donning black and red uniforms, barraging into their homes?

Her mind flashed to Genji and all the hate and rage and anguish that weighed down his soul, despite being stronger than he had ever been in his entire life. Every night he would be up in the meeting room in the far left corridor, stewing and brooding. There were many times that she had spent awake herself, thinking that perhaps she had made an error in judgment in saving his life.

She wondered how he was doing. She hoped he was better.

She stared at Khan, looking as tired and as haggard as she was. She sighed under her breath. Before this operation, something must have happened. Khan had done surveillance on these agents for months before acting on this rescue operation. He must have witnessed something to make him lose such control.

And she could understand.

It happened to the best of them.

"But it does not make it right."

He stared back at her and nodded. The rest of the ride was silent.

\------------------------------

Angela shivered.

The locker room was cold, feeling colder still due to her damp hair.

She toweled off her hair a little more as she walked over to her pile of clothes, laid out neatly on a metal bench. Angela hummed as she put on her clothes. Buttoning the last button of her blouse she walked off, discarding the towel in the hamper and was intent to leave when she spotted Fareeha in the corner of her eye.

Fareeha was sitting on the bench.

The upper half of her Raptora suit was already removed and placed back onto the stand. The armored parts that encased her legs though, were still on her. She was planted firmly on her ass, simply sitting and gazing off into the distance. The iron ring on her pinky clinked against the metal bench as she tapped the side of her left hand on the corner of the bench. A rhythm that Angela could not place. The sound bounced off the acoustic walls of the locker room.

Angela took a seat next to her. Fareeha did not react.

"Are you alright?" Angela finally asked after minutes passed.

Fareeha continued to stare ahead, working he jaw side to side. She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. Her pinky stopped hitting the metal bench. The iron ring clinked no more. The room was silent.

Fareeha shook her head once.

"No."

"...Want to talk to me about it?"

Fareeha breathed deeply and stooped down. She started to unbuckle and unclasp the armor around her legs, methodically removing each piece with trained and steady hands. She was ignoring her in the gentlest way possible. Angela reached out to tuck a falling strand of Fareeha's hair behind her ear. She stiffened, eyes drawing up to meet hers.

They are intense and watchful and Angela knows it is because she is not altogether out of fight mode yet.

Angela smiled lopsidedly and Fareeha broke. She stopped busying herself, letting an armor plate fall gently to the ground. She rose back up, not completely upright, but just enough to rest bent elbows on bent knees. Fareeha turned her head, cocked it in Angela's direction and wetted her lips.

"Something is up."

"Up?" Angela asked as she drew her knees up, planting her feet on the metal bench. She hugged them as she rested her head on top of her knees. "Like what? With what?"

"Talon. Something bigger is happening."

And Fareeha started to explain what information they had gleamed from that Talon higher-up. It had been vague and difficult to pry out any sort of intel, but ultimately they believed that Talon was starting to mobilize for something bigger. That they had plans that would ensure that the whole world would be catapulted into a third Omnic crisis. And that strange artifact Khan had found could be at the center of it.

They still wasn’t sure though. It was a strange thing.

Winston was going to have Athena and research personnel back at headquarters take a look at it.

"I see." Angela said when Fareeha finished speaking.

Fareeha nodded, hands still clasped in front of her. Her knuckles were white and Angela’s mouth quirked. She reached out and danced a few fingers on Fareeha's shoulder, letting the digits travel all the way to her face. When she reached, she poked Fareeha's cheek twice. Her udjat rose and fall with the small pushes of her finger.

Fareeha stared at her flatly and grabbed her hand, putting an end to her childish antics.

"What?"

"What's really bothering you, Fareehali? I know that as bad as that is, that is not what is bothering you."

The knowledge that Talon was trying to rally a huge event to plunge the world into chaos was just another Tuesday. That was always their plan. Overwatch knew that. She knew that. Fareeha certainly knew that.

She pulled out of Fareeha's hold gently and swiveled on the metal bench, straddling it. Angela repressed a desire to shiver as cool metal hit the back of her thighs. She reached out again, this time cupping Fareeha's face. Fareeha leans into the touch, eyes fluttering shut for a good second.

"You can talk to me, Fareeha."

Fareeha breathed in sharply.

"…That obvious, huh?"

Angela smiled. "Only because I know you."

The slight levity in her inflection brought a small smile to form on Fareeha's lips, if only for a moment.

"I hate it." She finally said as she buried her face further into Angela's hand. The words are half-hummed into her palm as Fareeha's lips brush against them. "I hate how some of them joined Talon thinking they're doing the world a favor by causing all this havoc. I hate it. Because in some ways, I see them to be like us. Doing illegal stuff and putting all their hard work into a cause they believe will ultimately help... I hate it."

Ah. That.

Angela remembered feeling just the same when she first heard of Akande and his rhetoric. She too, had hated how she could relate to his words, or at least where he came from.

As vile as his ideas were.

"Well," Angela started, tilting Fareeha's head up. "That's why we're here, I guess. To stop people who really think the end justifies the means… And for such a silly end to boot."

Fareeha lifted herself up from her bent position, slipping away from Angela's hand to sit upright. She hiked a leg over the metal bench as well to straddle it. They are now face to face. She stared at Angela imploringly.

"You really think that? That it’s silly?"

"Of course." Angela said. "It is an incredibly silly end. The advancement of humans means nothing if all they learn is how to be more violent, how to win wars, how to defeat and conquer… How to hate and think of a new way to destroy. What kind of world is that one? Is that really the one we should be striving for? It is a way to live, but I believe most people just want to be happy, don't you think?" She leaned forward and gave Fareeha a peck on the corner of her lips. "At least that's what I'm fighting for. A world full of smiles."

Fareeha blinked, before a spurt of a laugh escaped her.

"Couldn't agree more." Fareeha shook her head, a full-bodied grin adorning her lips, affection and respect sparkling in her eyes. "You already thought it all through, huh? You're really something else, Angela Ziegler."

Angela grinned.

"I'll show you _something_."

She leaned forward again, intent to capture Fareeha's lips this time. Fareeha quirked her mouth and leaned back herself, teasing Angela whole-heartedly by stalling for time. Angela lunged forward further.

"Have mercy on me." Fareeha chuckled out right before their lips connected.

Angela rolled her eyes and doubled her efforts from that stupid little pun, pulling Fareeha further into the searing kiss by the back of her neck. When they part, Fareeha looks more than a little flushed. Angela practically glowed with pride at her handiwork.

"Didn't I say to have mercy on me?" Fareeha said, wiping at her mouth.

There was a smile on her face though.

Angela flashed a wink.

"You did."

Fareeha blinked and then laughed again, shaking her head as comprehension dawned on her.

She grinned toothily.

“So I did.” She breathed out and leaned into kiss Angela once more.

And Angela met her eagerly half-way.

As they kissed, the thought does cross her mind that it is teenager of them, to be making out in a locker room after hours, but Angela thinks there could not be a better time. Whatever was waiting for them outside could wait just a few minutes longer. The world could handle the both of them not planning and researching every waking hour. Tomorrow they would rise, fully rested and ready to tackle on whatever new challenges was in store. But right now, she would indulge in feeling Fareeha’s soft lips pressed onto hers and the happy hums that came from the back of her throat.

Because life was simply not worth living without these small cherished moments.

And though Angela was Mercy, she was also only human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo what up. It is finally time for this book 2 to start. (If any of you just stumbled onto this, I highly suggest reading the first part of this series before diving into this one – you don’t have to, but like, high-key recommend)
> 
> …Unfortunately next chapter is in two weeks because I’m simultaneously trying to finish my Widowpharah friendship fic and I cannot multi-write. So one week focusing on this, the other week focusing on that fic (I hope I’m making sense).


	2. Back at Base

She woke up with a snort, startled awake by the sharp sound of clanging metals. Angela jerked forward instinctively from her supine position on her office couch, hand flying up to readjust her research glasses that had bent oddly in the course of what had been apparently, fitful sleep.

"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" Mei exclaimed.

Her office was still dark, illuminated only by the light that leaked through the open office door. Mei's was knelt on the ground, quickly picking up a few medical items strewn on the floor. As she watched Mei, her mind finally ticking awake after a few moments, it occurred to her that perhaps she should help. Angela rose up, wiped drool of the side of her mouth (internally shuddered at tasting the bitter tang of a drying mouth on her tongue) and helped the sorry woman out.

Goodness? 'Sorry'?

Fareeha's terrible puns were getting to her.

"I'm really sorry for messing up your office." Mei said with a trembling lip and worried lines, "I thought I could navigate well enough with only the light from the door to drop a few items, but look how well that turned out... Ruining valuable pieces of equipment with my error in judgment."

Angela giggled softly with a shake of her head.

"Relax Mei, the medical equipment in here can handle a bit of wear and tear." Angela said kindly, taking the small surgical items and placing them back on the table. She made a note to sanitize them later. "I will say though that it is dangerous to walk in the med-bay, even if only in my office quarters, in the dark. I advise that next time you should turn on the lights, regardless of my state."

"I didn't want to disturb you. You just came back and seemed tired - I know you rarely take naps."

Angela smiled.

"That's very kind of you." She said as she grabbed her lab coat from the coat hanger and slung it on. "But I think it was about time I woke up. I will never get over my jetlag if I spend all day sleeping."

Mei, on her part, still seemed unconvinced.

Or at least, still extremely guilty.

In part, Angela understood where Mei was coming from. She was tired, that was true, and it was probably written all over her face. The last few missions had indeed taken a toll. They had come in rapid succession and with accordance to the new rules that governed this still tentative new Overwatch, it had been calculated in Overwatch's best interests that the strike team never stay in one mission place too long. To come back to base at the earliest convenient time. That meant that most of the time, right when they adjusted to the time-zone of wherever they went to help suppress threats, it was the moment they had to fly back to headquarters.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar was the new headquarters now. Isolated, on its own island, and most of all, facilities still relatively intact. It helped a lot that it didn't suffer a giant explosive battle with real explosions, like say, the Swiss headquarters.

Plus, even during the golden days she and the strike team often frequented Watchpoint: Gibraltar (to the point that she had bothered to decorate her room and office space with personal effects).

"Angela? Are you okay?"

Mei was staring at her, head cocked, full of worry. Angela took a deep breath, shoved her hands in her lab coat pockets and rocked on her heels as she stretched her chest.

"I've just been working on a few things…”

Her Valkyrie suit for one, thanks to one Fareeha Amari and her little stunt in the last mission. Fareeha may have planned that freefall down, but for a short moment Angela's heart had stopped and her blood had froze. With her abilities she had no way of reaching the woman in time and then breaking her fall after. She needed to be able to figure out how to fly as well, without the aid of others, even if for a short moment.

“…And there's also the jetlag to boot." She said offhandedly, quickly continuing on when Mei looked just about ready to wrap her up in a blanket and throw her over her shoulder to carry her back to her room. "Maybe a bit of fresh air is due. Would you like to join me?"

Mei pursed her lips.

"…Alright. As long as you get out of the office."

The two of them walked through the halls leisurely, chit chatting about inane topics, waving at other agents they crossed paths with. It was easy to talk to Mei, Angela found. She was bright, in both senses of the word. She was intelligent beyond her means, and far more resourceful than people might give her credit for due to her bubbly exterior. She believed that they had a fighting chance to make the world a better place and was full of optimistic hope - in some ways, she reminded Angela of Fareeha.

"You're getting that faraway look in your eye... What are you thinking of?"

"A lot of things." Angela replied honestly with a shrug. Her left hand fiddled with the black worry stone that rested within it. "Overwatch. Hope. You. Mostly your ice gun as of right now actually, and how you made it in the midst of a highly dangerous situation."

"Well, you could say that I 'Mei'-gyvered my way out of that situation."

Angela paused, coming to a stop. She stared at Mei with narrowed eyes. Now, she wasn't sure what 'gyvered' meant, but from that twinkle in her eye, she was sure it was some sort of terrible pun. Indeed, Mei definitely reminded her of Fareeha in some ways. Angela went back into motion, long strides in an effort to make it difficult for Mei to keep up.

"Oh come on, Angela. Fareeha always makes puns!"

"Unfortunately that woman has stolen my heart. I must bear her puns." (And even then sometimes, they prove too much) She glanced back at Mei over her shoulder. "I do not need to be burdened with yours."

"I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry!" Mei laughed out in a tone that was anything but sorry as she caught up to Angela's brisk pace. "Was the small town nice? I heard its located deep in the valley surrounded by forests, and I know that area tends to be beautiful this time of year."

Angela pondered at Mei's question as she opened the heavy doors to the balcony. She took the long way around to get to the tables near the center-point of the half-circle banister. As her hand trailed the porcelain top of the banister, an ostentatious addition thanks to the Golden days, fingers moving at the will of the small cracks and bumps in the paint, she continued to mull over Mei's innocent inquiry.

Beautiful? Nice?

She reached the table, where Mei already sat neatly on the other side, and took a seat.

"It's a way to live." She finally settled on saying.

Though not a live she believed that she could live out. Idyllic and slow, and perhaps wonderful to many, but Angela had big dreams. An obvious fact considering how her life turned out and still turning out due to her life choices.

Angela turns her head to stare out to the horizon.

It was a nice day today. Perhaps she should get out more often.

"Mei... What time is it?"

" _Angela._ " Mei replied, the admonishment in her tone somewhat subdued by the exasperated smile on her lips. "It's already half past three. You need a proper sleeping schedule, none of this researching until the morning hits."

"It's the jetlag." Angela insisted, regretting admitting the research part already. "And I'm a busy woman."

"We all are-"

"Thank you, Mei."

"-but not all of us have someone waiting for us in bed, with such a strong frame to boot. I bet she shakes your world."

Angela mouth dropped open, flabbergasted.

"I- wha- I would have never expected such behavior from- _Mei!_ "

Mei's cheeky smile widened and as angel-faced as the woman was, with soft curves and lines and a rather plump figure, she looked downright devilish right now to Angela. Mei quirked an eyebrow as Angela continued to babble incoherently at the audacity of the woman in front of her.

"Th-that's not very professional of you to say." Angela finally spat out feebly.

"As if that means anything, we are off the clock right now," Mei said jubilantly as Angela covered her burning face with a hand. Mei's eyes shot downwards to the gardens below. "And so is the subject of our discussion apparently."

Angela followed Mei's eye line.

There is Fareeha, on her hands and knees deep in mud with Bastion. Her hair is tied to a small ponytail and her white tee and beige canvas pants are dirtied brown. She was wearing old cotton work gloves, a size too big and just as muddied as the rest of her, pulling at what seemed to weeds in the ground with an overly serious gleam in her eye. Bastion was huddled right next to her, picking at weeds with just as much fervor, ignoring the chirps of Ganymede on his shoulder.

"What are they doing?" Angela whispered softly, amusement ringing in her tone. "Looking oh so serious."

Fareeha suddenly looked up.

They caught each other’s eyes and Angela felt her heart thrum as Fareeha stood up and sent a dazzling smile her way. She shouted something or other at her, but Angela could not hear her, and leaned in slightly with a hand to her ear to get her message across. Fareeha yelled again. Angela once more, could not decipher the shouted words. She shook her head apologetically.

Fareeha smiled and jogged closer, craning her head now to look up at Angela.

"I said 'come down', Angela. Join us." Fareeha said cheerily, with a beckoning hand.

Angela's grip on the banister tightened. She feels an urge to do just that, to just leap off this balcony and straight into Fareeha's arms and charming jawline. To throw caution out the wind and indulge in this whimsical urge - she was sure that Fareeha would catch her. The impulse lasted only for a moment though; logic detailed to her that committing to such an act would not be in her best interests. Neither Fareeha's.

One of them would invariably end up with broken bones.

Angela shifted in place. If only she hadn't taken off her Valkyrie suit. Then she could have jumped, she could have glided and she could have landed in her girlfriend's arms. No one would be hurt, and no one would get a stern reprimand. And she would be in her arms.

A buzzing in her lab pocket broke her indulgent daydreams.

She pulled out her phone and unlocked it, clicking on the first message.

 _Please come to the research ward, asap. Thank you. -_ Winston

Angela sighed and held up her phone apologetically down at Fareeha, who understood the message quickly. She waved off her concerns with a loud ‘it's fine, good luck!’ (and shouted a 'how bout you, Mei? You want to join?' and received a polite 'no thank you' response from Mei). She then trotted back at where Bastion was and Angela watched her for a wistful moment.

"Well, as pleasant as this small break has been, I've been summoned by Winston."

"I still think you need to rest," Mei grumbled with a pout, crossing her arms. "But since its Winston, you're off the hook this time. After he is done with whatever he needs from you though, I order you to go and rest again."

Angela paused. She looked over her shoulder and grinned at Mei with a splash of cheekiness.

"Order me? And here I thought I was the doctor."

Mei stuck her tongue out in response and Angela laughed at the childish display. She bid her one final farewell and went back inside. The giggles continued in Angela, coming in spurts as she walked down Overwatch's halls to get to the research lab. It was refreshing how young Mei acted, even at her older age, even after everything she had been through.

And if Angela was being perfectly honest, it was the sort of energy this loose-hanging Overwatch needed more of, for there was enough sorrow hanging in the history of these walls.

\-------------------------

When Angela walked into Winston's research lab, it was as busy as she expected.

She could never get fully used to his research lab, despite it being in relatively close quarters with her own and spending quite a bit of time in here with him in the past. The endeavors in this lab ran more on scientific advances and fields that she had only tentative grasp in and at times ran closer to weaponizing than she was comfortable with. She never doubted Winston's integrity, _never_ , but she couldn't help the way her skin crawled whenever she saw any prototype that seemed nervously too close to doing harm than good.

Or had the ability to be easily upgraded to do something incredibly harmful.

Anything they made always had a chance to fall into the wrong hands, after all. She had witnessed that time and time again, and each time it was a nauseating experience. It was never easier thing to digest no matter how many times it has happened.

"Athena, how is the data analytics team doing?"

" _They are still processing the drives filled with data from the last mission. According to my calculations, they are right on schedule._ " Athena's voice boomed from the intercom. _"Shall I tell them to stop their efforts momentarily and assist you in another matter?"_

"No, no. I was just wondering how they were faring."

Angela looked around the lab, eyes focusing on the object at the center of the room. It was that strange artifact that Lieutenant Khan had been waving in his hand, suspended in air in a cylindrical pod, illuminated by lights shining above and below it. Angela stepped closer and pressed a hand to the glass as she stared at the broken shard. It twisted and turned in its cage slowly and the impressions that ran on all its side glimmered sometimes when it caught the light just right.

"What is this?" Angela muttered.

She had not seen anything like it. It clearly was a piece of something larger, and a component of some technological item. It was made of metal, but the design was unlike anything Angela had seen. And it somehow seemed...

Archaic.

"It's a funny thing, huh?" Winston remarked. Angela lifted her head and nodded in lieu of a greeting to Winston's warm stare. "To be fair, we still don't know what it is yet."

"It looks old."

He adjusted his glasses and breathed out deeply.

"Well, you're quite right. Our estimates say it is about 1 and half, maybe 2 decades old, but the technology is proving to be surprisingly difficult to crack or even understand. Mark my words though, I'll figure it out."

It could almost be perceived as disdain that was coming out of him, from the way he huffed out his words tiredly with an edge, however Angela knew Winston. The ape was simply disgruntled that he was at a loss, a blow to his ego that hurt even more considering that he was not only being befuddled by technology, but _old_ technology. He was mostly just exhausted as well, judging from the bags under his eyes, which made his words come out more tart than usual.

He clicked a few switches and the chamber opened up. Winston pulled out the artifact.

"Want to take a closer look?"

Angela reached out and took the artifact from Winston's hand. It was larger than she thought and she had to hold it with two hands to hold it comfortably. The artifact was curved and rather heavy for its somewhat slim frame, only a little more than an inch thick by her estimates. Her guess that the circuitry that ran down the flat surfaces were indented into the artifact like grooves was proven correct as she ran a finger down one of the lines. There were more lines than she thought however, some not highlighted by glinting gold, but all like little racetrack lines and routes.

Winston chuckled, bringing her attention back to him.

"You don't have to be so gentle, Angela." He said as he took back the item, knocking it on his other hand lightly to prove his point. "Whatever this is, it's made of chromium. It can take a few hits and be no worse for wear."

Winston then put it back into the chamber.

The glass closed up around it and after a click of a few more buttons, floated back up to the middle of the chamber. It slowly turned and flipped in midair once more.

Angela worked her jaw.

"So... you have no idea what it could be? No guesses?"

"Well..." Winston dragged out, scratching the back of his neck with an uneasy grin. "There's no proof and I do not like to _assume_ , because you know me, always like to be sure."

"But?"

"…Who says there is a ‘but’?"

She stared at him flatly. Winston shriveled under the gaze, all pretenses evaporating. He sighed.

"You know me too well." He mumbled out, before getting to the point. "First things first, my theory is extremely tentative and should be taken with _not_ a grain of salt, but a _pound_ of salt, you understand?"

He looked at her meaningfully and Angela nodded quickly.

( _Because of course she did, she knew of his careful tendencies since way back when and understood that if she didn't agree, she would get nothing from the ape_ ).

He stared at her for a few moments longer before he himself nodded, seemingly satisfied with her response.

"We think it’s some sort of channel - or a piece of it."

"A channel?"

Winston nods again.

"Yes, or a container or part of a chamber or something. We have no definitive proof, but it seems like the ends of this artifact attach to other artifacts of similar builds and quality. Like see, this groove right here?" He explained as he pointed at a section on the artifact. "It looks to be something that would snap into place with something else."

She could see where Winston was coming from, but it was rare for the ape to draw such large conclusions based on such little evidence - even after being somewhat coerced by her to spit out any theory he might have.

"Winston... I..."

Judging from the look on Winston's face, he understood her reservations and she was thankful not to have to complete her sentence. There was no nice way of telling someone they might be jumping the gun a bit.

"Come here, Angela. I got something to show you."

Angela followed him to the storage room, and waited by the door as he moved and shuffled boxes around. Eventually he found whatever he came there to find and pulled out one storage box. He opened it and well, what was inside was interesting. A whole box full of artifacts, odds and ends that seemed to be built in accordance with the artifact that hovered in the chamber. Same sort of look and feel to them.

"We haven't found any that fits any other piece unfortunately, so I'm guessing whatever it is supposed to build is rather large. Which is a problem."

The grimness in Winston's tone puts Angela on edge.

"And why do you say that?" She asked in an even tempered tone that belied none of her nervousness. She had the most horrible feeling she was not going to enjoy the answer one bit. "Winston?"

"Because each and every one of these pieces we have found all come from Talon bases around the world."

Oh no.

"That's not… good." She said aloud lamely, and cringed.

She could have phrased that better.

"Yeah, it's not. Not good at all. I'm starting to think we need to focus on finding out what exactly this makes." Winston said as he adjusted his glasses. He then stared at the entrance to the research lab, hands on his hips. "Which is why I wish Mei would hurry to get here - her insight may glean useful as there is something in this artifact that suggests cryogenics of some sort."

Angela cocked her head. "When did you call for her?"

"About a few minutes ago." He rummaged his fanny pack and pulled out his phone. "Roughly... aw shoot." He groaned, before an embarrassed smile crossed his face. "I uh... accidentally messaged you instead, got you as Mercy in my phone you see…”

Angela shook her head good-naturedly.

“I was wondering why you suddenly came here out of the blue. Guess this answers that mystery.”

It seemed she was not the only one off their game and in need of rest.

"You know, this is the third time this has happened to me with this new phone. Athena!" Winston called, holding his phone up to the monitor where Athena's logo appeared. "I think it's time I get a new smartphone. One that is made for-" He twiddles his large digits- "Bigger folk. My clumsy fingers keep pressing the wrong buttons and in this case, the wrong contact."

" _Noted. I will pull up some alternative schematics for that model shortly, along with other models that have similar capabilities but are more suited to someone of your size._ "

"Thank you, Athena."

Angela giggled at the exchange, then interjected into the conversation.

"Would you like me to get Mei for you, Winston?"

" _Do not trouble yourself, Dr. Ziegler._ " Athena chimed in, " _I am more than capable to fetch Mei for Winston._ "

Angela smiled.

"Alright." She then rocked on her heels. "Guess I should find something else to occupy my time. I wonder if Fareeha is still in the open gardens?"

She was talking to herself. She did not expect any sort of response. And yet.

" _She is, Dr. Ziegler. Though now closer to the fountain than the west balcony. She is lying on the grass with Bastion and Ganymede. They seem to be simply talking to each other._ "

Angela quirked a brow. "Spying, Athena?"

" _I have eyes everywhere, Dr. Ziegler._ "

As always, Athena's words were delivered in a mechanical fashion, with an undulating yet monotonous tone. Her brows furrowed however, because perhaps it was simply her imagination, but Angela felt that there was a trickle of humor in her words. She was going to say something about it, but then thought better of it last minute. Instead Angela chuckled and simply shook her head.

"Goodbye, Athena."

" _Goodbye, Dr. Ziegler._ "

\-------------------------

As Athena had said, Fareeha was on the grass in the open gardens near the fountain with Bastion and Ganymede. Only difference was that Fareeha and Bastion were standing, not sitting.

And Ganymede was flying.

"Ganymede! Stop!"

Fareeha was laughing, chortling without restrain, the happiness reaching her eyes and crinkling her udjat delighfully so as Ganymede fluttered his wings, beating them as he rammed straight into Fareeha's chest. Her hands were up, around Ganymede like she was afraid that the bird might fall at any time, all the while her shoulders rose and fell in tandem with her bursting giggles, utterly tickled by the flapping of the bird's feathers.

“Ganymede!” Fareeha wheezed. “What are you doing?”

Ganymede chirped and flapped his wings harder.

"It looks like he fancies you." Angela spoke aloud as she closed in on the trio, pulling off her research spectacles and pocketing it in her lab coat. She savors the ways Fareeha positively lit up at noticing her presence, then extended a finger out. Ganymede stopped his onslaught at Fareeha to perch on Angela’s crooked finger. Angela brought her hand up to get the bird to eye-level. "I understand you completely, Ganymede, but only one blonde has the right to nuzzle into that bosom."

And with that she bobbed her finger lightly upwards, and Ganymede flew up into the sky, chirping all the while, around and around their heads before resting on Bastion's shoulder.

She swiveled around to fully face a thoroughly amused Fareeha, looking like she couldn't believe what had come out of Angela's mouth.

"I didn't know you were the jealous type."

One of Angela's hands found their way onto Fareeha's hip, the other the front of her shirt. She pulled Fareeha in for a quick kiss, and when they parted Angela relinquished her iron grip on her shirt and made a motion like she was smoothing out wrinkles. It was happenstance that the wrinkles resided on the part of Fareeha’s shirt that was dangerously close to her chest.

Really.

"What a coincidence, I didn't know I was the jealous type either until I met you." Her hand then went up to Fareeha's face to rub off some residual dirt that rested cutely on her nose from when she was helping Bastion out in the flower bed. "We learn something new about ourselves every day, now don't we?"

"No need to be jealous." Fareeha grinned out. "My name is Fareeha, not Furry-ha."

Her hand stilled. She pinched Fareeha's nose.

"Angela!" Fareeha whined, voice nasally from her nostrils being blocked. "This is abuse, y'know."

"You are honestly the worst sometimes."

A smile crept on her face though, breaking her annoyed visage as Fareeha whined but made no move to remove her hands, letting Angela 'punish' her for as long as she wanted. She soon let go of course, and what a reward that was to her eyes when Fareeha rubbed at her now tender nose with a finger. It was an adorable sight to Angela, considering how smudged with mud she still was and that pouty look on her face.

"Looks like you guys had a lot of fun rolling in the mud."

A series of beeps came out of Bastion suddenly, and Angela had the strongest feeling they were beeping at her. Angela stared blankly, not having one idea as to what they said to her. Ganymede chirped in as well. It was also rather unhelpful. Angela couldn't speak bird either.

Luckily, Fareeha intervened and saved the day.

"Bastion says that we did have a lot of fun, pulling out weeds and planting new fresh flowers that would make the whole place seem prettier. Wasn't that right, Bastion?"

They beeped again this time with fervent hops and waving of their arms, and though Angela did not really comprehend omnic-speak (and was thoroughly surprised to learn that Fareeha had a somewhat grasp on the, albeit, difficult language), she could tell that they were refuting some point Fareeha had made.

(Ganymede also chirped... angrily, Angela guessed)

"Right, right." Fareeha laughed out as she threaded her fingers through Angela's. "My bad. Not only flowers, a few bushes too. This omnic right here, has a bit of an artistic streak, you see? Doesn’t want it all to look so uniform."

"Is that right, Bastion?" Angela asked, mostly out of politeness.

Their eyes blinked blue rapidly in excitement and they dropped into a squat, throwing their hands into the air, but instead of gang sings it was two thumbs up. Angela giggled at the silly sight, covering her laughter with a hand.

"Now who taught you something as silly as that?"

He beeped. She looked at Fareeha.

"Hey, not my fault this time. This is the handiwork of one of the new recruits. Some guy from the engineering team called Barclay."

Huh. Guess some of the other folks here were not avoiding Bastion as she had thought would inevitably happen. The omnic hadn't done anything to cause alarm, but they unfortunately carried the burden of being a Bastion - the face of the omnic crisis for many parts of the world.

“Well, he seems like a nice man.”

Bastion whirred in agreeance and held out a metal palm for her to hi-five.

Angela hesitated, making no move to reciprocate when she felt a reassuring squeeze on her other hand from Fareeha. She awkwardly raised her hand and lightly slapped the awaiting hand. Bastion bounced up at down at the contact then started to chase Ganymede as the bird flew and called for the omnic to follow. Angela chewed her lip as she watched the strange game of tag.

Bastion was the face of the omnic crisis for many parts of the world - Switzerland, included.

It was their built, their make and model that had destroyed her town and most of Europe, wreaking havoc and raking up the body count of civilians with no remorse. As such, she had found herself not engaging with the Bastion much, despite Torbjorn's best efforts and Fareeha's tendency to hang in their presence from time to time.

"You alright, ya amar?"

Angela nodded. "Yup. Perfectly fine."

It was unfair really, the light sting in her hand reinforcing her guilt, the omnic had done no wrong to her. They were actually rather gentle, like an overgrown child, really, and so far, just as harmless. However, try as she might, Angela could never relieve herself of the slight apprehensiveness she felt whenever she was in their presence.

She felt another squeeze on her hand.

"You did good, Angela. More than a few words this time, even a touch."

She nodded again.

Fareeha was kind. If Angela was a pettier person, she could have chalked up Fareeha's incredible ability to be completely fine with Bastions from the fact that she hailed from Egypt. Fareeha too had experienced the trail ends of the omnic crisis, but not the threat of Bastions. The Omniums in the Middle East and the God AI's there didn't create Bastions to raise hell in their deserts. They had churned out ANJHA's instead, something more suited to the soft sands of Egypt – like the refurbished ones she saw way back when, a few years before Tracer was inducted into the strike team.

She would never forget the way they glided on the sand like Jet Ski’s on still waters, zig zagging at alarming speeds and bursting out of sand dunes in which they had buried themselves in for covert attacks. It was terrifying, even under Reinhardt's protective shield, knowing one of them might just pop out from the ground and swallow them whole.

She couldn't imagine what it felt like for a front-liner.

Like Fareeha was at the time.

Still a smalltime soldier sent to the worse areas of the war.

Did she ever pray hard in Arabic, Islamic prayers in rushed breaths, hoping some higher being would come and help her? Puffing away at one last cigarette, despite not liking to smoke all that much, just to relieve some last minute doubts of going into the fray? Spend nights looking at the stars, thinking that this was the last time she could before a random bullet zipped through her brain?

(The thought made Angela's stomach flip)

Her hand is pulled up and she feels soft lips on the back of her hand.

She is jarred out of her thoughts.

"Are you alright, habibti?" Fareeha mumbled out, the rumble in her voice vibrating straight into her hand, inducing a wave of calm over her. Fareeha had yet to set her hand down, nor remove her lips from her hand. Her eyes were intense and focused on her and her only as she held her hand to her lips. "Angela?"

She forced a smile.

If she was petty and stupid (and didn't know a single thing about Fareeha) she could have indulged in such a silly excuse: that Fareeha wasn't afraid of Bastions because she would be afraid of ANJHAs’ instead. Only trouble was that Fareeha wasn't afraid of them either. To her, the only ones to fear are God AI's.

_They're the bad guys, Angela. Everyone else is just collateral._

"Angela?" Fareeha repeated. Their joined hands were now lowered, and Angela missed the warmth of Fareeha's lips on the back of her hand immediately. "Talk to me."

"Just thinking about the past." Angela said, finally finding her voice.

 _And you in particular_.

"Ah... I see." Fareeha muttered sagely. She was quiet after that. She dropped Angela's hand and hooked her thumbs on the belt loops of her canvas pants. Considering her next words carefully, as she always did. "...Anything I can do to make it better?"

Angela thought about it. She thought back to her life, her childhood, after the crisis, after the disbandment of Overwatch, to working in refugee areas, and finally to meeting the woman that was standing before her. There were many times in her life where she felt lost, unhappy or unsure, but meeting Fareeha was not something she ever doubted was a good thing. She smiled and it was a genuine thing.

"Trust me. You're doing far more than you think."

Fareeha grinned back.

"…Hey, you want to go work out? It always helped me wind down."

Angela quirked a brow teasingly.

"Hmmm. Are you perhaps trying to suggest something else, Fareeha?"

"Well." Fareeha started conspiratorially. She poked at her stomach. "You are getting a little soft."

She swatted her invasive hand away.

Soft? _Soft?_

"Please Fareeha," and there is fire in the delivery of her words. "I _carry_ the team."

She literally did last mission. Twice.

"Oh, yeah?" Fareeha quipped challengingly, a laughing grin on her face. "Well, I'm ready to go to gym when you are."

"Then let's go now." Angela replied tersely, walking off first to the gym.

She was going to wipe the floor with Fareeha's face.

She'd show her.

\-------------------------

She had been overzealous in proving herself. As a doctor she had realized she was overextending herself the moment she did, but she needed to wipe that smug... whatever it was from Fareeha. The woman didn't have a smug smile, but she radiated it.

_Are you alright?_

_Don't push yourself too hard now._

_I think that’s enough, ya amar._

(How dare she tack on ‘ya amar’ at the end of that condescendingly delivered statement)

(It was the only time Angela did not like Fareeha's pet names for her)

However, as usual, pride comes before fall and now Angela was an aching mess who simply could not find the energy to pick herself up from the floor. So for the last few minutes, she had just been lying there, on a yoga mat, arms and legs splayed wide, simply cooling down. The sweat that had poured down her face had dried somewhat to that slightly sticky texture. It was downright unpleasant if she was being honest, but trying to hoist herself up right now? Even more unpleasant. So she stayed put right where she was, catching her breath, letting her limbs stretch and recovering from a painful, painful workout.

And to rub salt in the wound, the locker room door opened then and there, and out came Fareeha strolling back into view, freshly washed in compression shorts and a loose tank. There is a pompous smile on her lips (Fareeha-style, where it was just the slightest upturn at the corner of her mouth and a teasing glimmer in her eyes), and Angela cannot bear to look at it.

So she doesn't and turns her head the other way.

She feels Fareeha take a seat next to her. The woman smells of citrus, and Angela shivers as a splash of cold water drips onto her, most likely from Fareeha's loose hanging locks.

"I told you, you should have taken it more lightly, ya amar. Now look at you."

She willed herself to turn at that crooned out remark.

"Keep talking and I'll rise up right now,” she threatened, not actually sure if she could follow through, “and rub my sweaty body all over your freshly cleaned one."

Fareeha simply chuckled and rose back up.

"Sure, sure. Anyways, I'm going to get dinner first. Join me whenever you can get up."

Angela huffed. There was no way Fareeha was actually going to leave her to go to dinner first. But then she saw that Fareeha was actually heading to the door. And then throwing her hair towel into the used bin as she passed it. And then actually touching the door handle.

"Wait just one second, Fareeha!" She said, rising up to a sitting position, intent to get the last word in. "The next mission we have, it'll be me saving your sorry butt and then we'll see who has the last laugh."

"Angela. Ya amar."

Angela prepared herself for some sort of comeback, even slightly tensing in anticipation of it (though she would deny, deny and deny if anyone called her out on it). Fareeha pulled the door open and then turned to look at Angela square in the eye over her shoulder, sincerity ringing clear in her dark brown eyes. A handsome smile on her face.

"I've always counted on you out there."

And then she walked off, leaving Angela with a strange sort of mixture of warmth and annoyance at the sheer honesty that was reflected in Fareeha's whole being as she said those words. She grumbled and crossed her arms. It should be illegal for people to say things like that in that sort of way.

_You don't play fair, Fareeha._

Angela stewed on the ground for a while longer before she ignored the silent screams of her body to simply not move to get up and go to the showers. As Angela stood under the rush of hot water, she reminded herself to rub her muscles later with some ointment. The ache would double tomorrow, nanites in her body be damned. They worked well, but they certainly were not a cure-all by any means.

(Damn her stupid pride)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Light-hearted transition chapter w/ a bit of plot splashed in the middle. Shout out to that tumblr post on Mei-gyvered/Macgyver pun, because genius.  
> Anyways, another arc is just around the corner. Wonder what it will be about~  
> Hint hint: Y’all ready for some symmetry and beats (not by dr. dre)?


	3. Suit Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone look at this piece of fanart I got. It's frickin' dope:
> 
> [CLICK HERE](http://bonbonbourbon.tumblr.com/post/165057087964/sword0fstorms-nanoha-thankyouforbeingborn)
> 
> ^Give'em a like, reblog or just a nice comment in the replies if you got a tumblr and time :)  
> And PS. They know they messed up a tad with the shading and already are gonna work better next time around.

“You’re not supposed to smoke indoors.” Fareeha stated off-handedly as she swiped the cigar easily from between Mccree’s lips. She inspected it for a moment, two fingers and a thumb holding the tightly packed tobacco leaves close to her face. She turned it side to side and the glossy label shimmered under the light. “Macanudo Café Lords – sounds fancy.”

She extended her arm outwards away from Mccree’s as he tried to make a grab for the cigar.

“Don’t sass me. For a cigar that only costs a fiver, it’s damn good.” Mccree informed testily. His arm shot out again to curl around the cigar. Fareeha effectively kept it out of his reach with another outstretch of her arm – upwards this time. “Oh c’mon sunshine, give it back. Cigars ain’t any good re-lit.”

“Cigars aren’t any good for you all the time, Jesse.” She argued airily, twirling the half-smoked cigar in her fingers, dodging another failed attempt to take it. The cigar was well-made. Hefty construction. Prettily packaged poison in the shape of a fat cylinder. “Don’t we get enough smoke in our lungs on the field?”

Jesse scoffed.

“You just don’t get the appeal because you got no class.”

She punished him for the insult, jabbing an elbow right into his gut. He shoved her in retaliation and Fareeha blundered into the wall from the force of his push. Shit, she thought to herself, ears burning from the rumbling chuckle Mccree let out at her stumble.

_Cheater._

_Using his metal arm._

The cigar stayed tightly in her grip through it all though and she waved it at him obnoxiously when she righted herself back up, pompous smirk on her face. He huffed and shoved his hands in his pockets, the lazy meandering gait of his walk becoming more like brash little stomps.

“Feh. Whatever. Keep it.” He groused and stuck his tongue out at her like a child, before grumbling under his breath. “You sound just like Angela.”

Fareeha chuckled.

They both greeted the other agents they passed by, acknowledging tilts of the head from her and two finger salutes from Mccree (plus the occasional toeing-the-line-of-professionalism wink by Mccree for agents he found particularly lovely – Winston would not be happy about that). The floor was buzzing today, and though boardroom meetings were usually droll, Fareeha had a feeling that there must be something exciting happening today.

She chucked the burnt out cigar into a bin, ignoring Mccree’s final whimper of protest.

“Any idea what’s on the addendum today, Jesse?”

He let out a low thoughtful hum, scratching his beard with all four of his fingers.

“Some hot-shot came probably. I heard about the discrete looking foreign helicopter that landed a half hour ago, though I don’t know who in the hell would come by personally since we’re supposed to be a defunct organization and illegal to boot-”

They hear a high-pitch scream come out of the boardroom.

It’s Lena.

Screaming at a register she had never heard before and the sound pierced straight through to her soul.

Fareeha busted into a run, a straight beeline to the boardroom. She was only vaguely aware of Mccree running along beside her, attention rapt on the double doors to the boardroom and the screeching woman behind them. A half meter away Mccree pulled out his gun, Fareeha’s hand curled around a security baton she had clipped on her belt in case of emergency, and they both raised their foot to kick down the double doors. She wished she had brought a small firearm as well. Simultaneously, they kicked the double doors open – ready for anything.

Come what may.

“Lena! What’s going-... on…?”

She frowned, and her grip on her baton loosened. Lena was fine, standing with a pen held in a bare hand while the other held her taken off glove, presenting both items to the only new face of the room. The only unsettling thing (if she could call it that) was the bug-eyed looks of shock on all the occupants in the room as they stared at them with gaping maws, reeling from their grand entrance.

Her eyes honed in on the new face.

She retracted her baton and clipped it back onto her belt.

Huh.

Oh.

Of course.

Mccree let out a low whistle, propping his elbow on her shoulder. His gun was safely holstered once more.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I know there was company, but I didn’t expect yer face.” Mccree tipped his hat in their direction, signature grin stretched wide on his face. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Big fan.”

Lucio smiled from where he stood, his teeth blinding and eyes lit with genuine glee.

“Big fan of yours too, cowboy. Heard you’re the best shot around.”

“Please, call me Mccree.” Mccree shrugged. “But feel free to continue with the compliments.”

Lucio beamed, a chortle coming out of him that came right from his stomach as he nodded and gave a whimsical salute. The charming man excused himself from a star struck Lena (after quickly signing her glove first with a flick of his wrist) and skated his way closer. Well, not so much skated as glided his way over, sliding towards them with the fluidity of a water bug on a still pond. Comfortable with himself and going to the beat of his own rhythm – for better or for worse.

Lucio always has.

Fame had changed nothing in that regard.

“Fareeha, it’s been a long time.” He grinned out as he drifted to a stop in front of them. He held up his palm encouragingly, shaking it a little. “Don’t leave me hangin’!”

“Mr. Santos.” She humbly replied with a small bow of the head, before proceeding to gently hi-five his awaiting hand. She ignored the way Mccree rapidly looked between her and him with open confusion and intrigue errant in his eyes. “It has indeed.”

He puffed up his face, pulling into a childish frown.

“Fareeha, how many times have I told you to just call me Lucio?”

“Well. If I’m not mistaken,” She pretended to take a moment to consider. “All the time.”

“And yet you never listened.” Lucio chided her with a full-bodied grin tacked wide, hands dramatically placed on his hips as he jutted his chin up at her. “Were you inspired by a freedom fighter not to listen to the big boss in charge or something?”

Her mouth quirked. As good as ever at keeping things light and masterful as ever at double-entendres. If Lucio didn’t become a DJ, he could’ve easily become a rapper. Or really anything in the music industry. The man was a lyrical genius with an ear gifted by the gods, _and_ could play like, seven instruments.

“Boss?” She sounded out slowly with a furrow of her brows, staring at Lucio with a false veneer of stony confusion. “If I recall correctly…” Her eyes twinkled with mirth. “You weren’t the one paying for my services now were you? It was that manager of yours at that time – and he specifically said, ‘call him Mr. Santos’.”

And so she did.

A pretentious and underhanded fellow that one. It was surprising that someone like Lucio ever hired a manager like him in the first place. Cost of doing business and going legit, she supposed. She herself has played nice with people she would rather not have any sort of association with for the sake of a job.

“Oh, you mean the dude with the stuffy face? Sort of looked like a cabbage somehow?”

Fareeha pursed her lips.

Now _that_ was an image (and it wasn’t exactly wrong, if she thought about it).

“Sure, let’s go with that. Yes.”

Lucio laughed and Fareeha could not help but return a half-smile back.

\---------------------------

Lucio.

Lucio Correia dos Santos.

Freedom fighter that rallied the hearts of the people of Rio de Janeiro and pushed back against the tyrannical rule of Vishkar when the corporation entered their country. A man who stole the very tools used to control his community and turned the tides around with it – using the very technology that harmed them in the first place to better everything once more. A person undaunted by the seemingly unsurmountable enemy that was a powerful international conglomerate and actually came out on top despite all odds.

In an incredible story of a successful uprising and subsequent resistance, Lucio went from ordinary music man from the slums to an iconic face in the line of famous freedom fighters; both from his impeccable leadership and charisma to his extremely unique brand of opposition and unification.

Angela does not think she can think of another figure that united people primarily with song and fought with the rhythm of beats blasting from an amp gun.

Staring at the man himself in the flesh, Angela does not believe his reputation preceded him by any means. There was something dazzling about Lucio. The moment he walked in the room, she knew he was something special – that he had that special star-like quality about him that made a person listen. Angela could see how people could be attracted to him and feel their hearts rallied by his very presence.

However, something she did not expect was for him to know Fareeha.

And for Fareeha to know him.

Neither did anyone else in the room apparently.

“Hey now,” Mcree gestured back and forth between Lucio and Fareeha with a languid finger. “You two know each other? What did you say, Far? That his manager was yer boss?”

Fareeha nodded.

“I was part of his security detail when he visited Egypt on his first world tour. You would think it’s a little extra considering I worked for HSI and was pretty high up by then, but let me tell you.” Fareeha scrunched her nose like she had smelled a whiff of something rancid, shaking her head a couple of times. “Some of those fans? They can be… a lot.” She rolled her shoulders. “…Let’s just say I always had to keep an eye out.”

“Geez, you make it sound like you never let loose sunshine.”

“She didn’t. Made me think my music ain’t that great, because I swear to god, she just stands there looking bored. Not even a little tap of the toes.” Lucio complained loudly, nudging Fareeha on the shoulder playfully. “Offered her any drink she wanted, on the house, and still nothing. I don’t think I ever saw this woman take one sip, and you best believe I tried.”

“Blame it on those fans, Lucio.” She said evenly. “Couldn’t afford to not be of sound mind.”

“You sure it didn’t have anything to do with that professionalism of yours? I remember you barely drank even after-hours.”

Fareeha handed out a small smile.

“That too, Mr. Santos.”

“I told you, it’s Lucio-Oh’s.”

Fareeha chuckled politely at the joke, a sliver of teeth shown as her smile cracked into the tiniest of grins.

“How many other high profile people have you protected?” Lena asked as she twiddled her thumbs, the signed glove slipped back on her left hand. The signature signed in silver gel boldly on display. Curiosity gleamed in her vibrant eyes. “Just wondering.”

“Plenty. Though I must admit Mr. Santos was one of the best clients I ever had from the celebrity world. He had fun, but he never got into trouble.” She took a glance at his sonic amplifier. Her grin diminished slightly. “Well, not too much.”

He followed her gaze and the heavier lines around Lucio’s face seemed to deepen.

“That was for my people, Fareeha.” He said quietly. “I had to.”

Fareeha breathed out softly, disapproval clear in her exhale. It was a faint noise, completely unnoticeable if not for the sudden silence that enveloped the room from the considerable shift in the atmosphere.

“I know you feel that way but as before, we’ll have to continue to agree to disagree.”

Winston made a noise from where he sat.

“A-anyways!” Winston exclaimed brashly, hoping to shatter the growing somberness. “What’s important right now is that Lucio, you’re here because you are in need of urgent help right?”

Lucio smiled, and it is a tired smile.

“That’s right, Winston. I came here all covertly and all to ask for help.”

He took a seat at the round table and gestured Mccree and Fareeha to do the same. They too take a seat, Fareeha beside her and Mccree on Fareeha’s other side. Lucio rested his arms on the table and leaned forwards towards the middle, stomach pressing on the table side. His lips are pursed and he stared down at the grain of the wood of the table with a conflicted expression. He let out a long exhale that was at odds with his previously cheery disposition.

“I know you didn’t want to rehash old events, Fareeha.” He said apologetically as he pulled out a USB drive and waved it in the air. Fareeha sat up straighter as he plugged the USB into the computer. “But we’re going to have to.”

Fareeha tapped her palm on the table. Her iron ring clinked on the wood.

The hologram in the middle of the table came to life after a few short moments. A map presented itself, complete with raised buildings and landscapes in front of their eyes. Angela recognized the city created. It is Oasis. Hovering higher above in the air are holographic boxes filled with information and other details. The pictures of bases and other created buildings that hang in some of the suspended info boxes of the hologram are also familiar. The logo plastered on one box in particular, recognizable on an international level.

It is Vishkar.

“They’re up to no good again.” Lucio said simply while he let the information displayed do most of the talking for him. He did however, point at a certain box. “I’m sure you agree that I had to take this matter here to you guys, because of this little troubling picture right here.”

As clear as day, there is a snapshot filling that box.

A snapshot of a man who Overwatch had suspected had tenuous links to Talon (though not completely proven with sure-fire evidence) and a Vishkar higher-up having an undisclosed meeting in some undisclosed area. Or at least, there was no data on file as to the whereabouts of this meeting or even the exact date.

“I had heard-” Angela began, while her eyes still roamed at all the information lying in front of her, soaking it all in – “that Vishkar had plans to enter Oasis, but I would have never presumed that Talon was involved…”

“I can see why it was important you meet us, Lucio.” Winston commented gravely, adjusting his glasses. “I’m so glad you knew we were back up running.”

Lucio shrugged.

“Hey, I may be legit now, but I still know what’s going on in the underground.” He leaned back on his chair and hanged an arm on the back. “I still hear things through the grapevine. It did take a while to find a way to actually contact you though. I’ll confess to that.”

Angela continued to stare at the plans. The detailed papers showcased had large sections omitted and despite all the text, the most pertinent details were unavailable. There was no telling what exactly Vishkar was actually up to with Talon, which information was relevant, and what Overwatch was to do.

Only that something was happening. Somewhere in a facility set up near Oasis.

“We need more.” Winston commented, reaching the same conclusion as her probably after a quick scan of the relayed information. “We can see that Vishkar has plans for Oasis and operations near enough to the city, and that something is amiss, but there’s no telling what exactly they are up to…” Winston grumbled. “Is there more to this? Are you holding back details until we accept?”

Lucio shook his head morosely.

“No, this is all I got. This is all I know.”

Fareeha’s voice cuts in.

“How did you come by these plans, Mr. Santos?”

“It just fell into my lap.”

“Mr. Santos.” Fareeha implored in a low warning tone, drawing out his name. He didn’t answer. “ _Lucio_.”

Lucio sighed.

“Forget how I got this information for once, Fareeha.”

“What do you mean ‘forget’? How can we simply turn a blind eye? I-”

Angela discretely rested her palm on Fareeha’s thigh, momentarily stopping Fareeha in her tracks with the small gesture of comfort. Fareeha glanced at her and she shook her head subtly once as she squeezed Fareeha’s thigh to help assuage the building aggravation in her Fareeha. She could see it from her raised shoulders and hear it in the odd strain that had been coloring her voice.

Fareeha’s shoulders dropped, her clenched hands slackened.

Angela squeezed Fareeha’s thigh again one more time comfortingly and then picked up where the woman left off.

“Fareeha is not saying we don’t want to help, Lucio. It’s simply that the way we procure intelligence is just as important as the way we operate in order to help.” Angela supplied helpfully. “We would be no better than the very things we fight if we trample all over people’s rights to do further our own agendas – as altruistically based as we believe them to be.”

And the world would not be so forgiving.

She does not forget the erroneous mistake of allowing Blackwatch to operate so underhandedly.

Lucio scratched his head, lips pulled down into relenting scowl.

“Right. I get that. I wasn’t actually trying to evade your question. The truth is this information really did just fall into my lap. Was sent an anonymous package one day. No return address or nothing.” Lucio waved his hand all over, highlighting various sections of the hologram. “But you have to admit, no matter how this information has been received, you have to at least do _something_. I may not be an expert in these things, but even I know it’s critical that this be stopped in its tracks. Whatever ‘this’ is.”

Angela agreed with that notion whole-heartedly.

Oasis is one of the, if not _the_ , most advanced place in the world at current. If Vishkar wanted to dabble in any sort of sordid activities in there and utilize the technology in ways that would somehow also benefit Talon…

She shuddered. She did not want to even begin to imagine the consequences.

They had no choice but to act.

“So…” Mccree drawled out from where he sat, legs kicked up on the table, arms crossed. “How are we going to play this? Did you come with any sort of idea for us to gather more information or are we on our own now that you’ve given us all this?”

Lucio grinned, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“A plan? I mean,” He excitedly whispered in hush tones, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “There’s _one_ really easy way to get the last bits of necessary information from Vishkar, don’t you think?”

\---------------------------

Fareeha closed her eyes and suppressed a groan.

She knew it.

She just _knew_ she’d hate the plan that bubbled out of Lucio’s lips. She knew it the moment she witnessed that scheming little glean enter Lucio’s eyes. It reeked of trouble and an idea she would not like.

Like that time he threw a party with free-flowing drinks and shots.

She had to break up a dozen fights and pick up another dozen people off the floor who were black out drunk and completely passed out. _While_ ensuring the safety of her client.

It was not fun.

A part of her wanted to indulge in her little fantasy that he was only joking, but from the way Lucio was positively beaming, Fareeha understands with every fiber of her being that her former client was completely serious about his aforementioned plan. She raised an objecting hand slowly, mind wracking for a better plan to form and send out as more viable.

“Lucio, maybe we should think of alternative solutions first-”

The rest of her sentence goes unheard by everyone, herself included, as three excitable shrieks blast out in the room. Two from either side of her, and one from the person who had made her worry and panic when she first entered the double doors of the boardroom. Fareeha flinched at the sudden decibel of noise coming from all sides of her.

Her gut roiled and she felt the trepidation in her belly solidify.

 _Shit. Shit. Shit_.

Angela tugged at her sleeve.

“Fareehali.” Angela whispered out and Fareeha swallowed her embarrassment and turned to look at her girlfriend. Angela’s eyes are sparkling and there was excitement coloring the entirety of her face. “ _Fareehali_.”

Fareeha deflated. Angela was gone, poignantly in love with the idea already. She felt it from the way she breathed out her name in that breathlessly excited way of hers. The way she did when she brought the woman to Aswan that one time right after they started dating. She gathered her courage and turned to look at Mccree. And then Tracer. The two other voices that let out a shrill sound moments prior.

Both looked equally as excited as Angela.

Finally, she glanced at Winston and felt her very heart drop at seeing the way he seemed to consider the proposition and then nod as if to confirm his acceptance of the plan.

Fareeha let out the suffering groan she had been holding back.

Fareeha was never one to back down from a challenge, but for once in her life she was willing to let a challenge slide. She did not want to be chosen for this mission. She really hoped not. But when Winston snapped his fingers and pointed at her-

She felt her nostrils flare as Lucio’s unabashed tickled giggles grated on her ears.

-Fareeha knew she was doomed.

\---------------------------

“This isn’t fair!” Lena moaned, flopping backwards on the couch. Her arms and legs kicked. “Why can’t I go? This is- this is prejudice!” She rose back up to a seated position and stretched her hands at Winston, making a grabbing motion with her fingers at Winston. “Winston, pleaaase.”

Winston swatted her hands away.

“Stop- urgh.” He pushed her hands away again. “Lena stop trying to whittle me down.”

“But it’s not fair.” She whined and pointed accusingly at her. “Fareeha doesn’t even want to go!” She flailed like a bright idea had just sparked in her. “I can take her place! I’m _willing_!”

“I agree. Please let her go instead.”

She scrunched her face as Angela tightened her grip on her chin and straightened her back in her direction. Usually she liked it when Angela cupped her face. This time, not so much.

“Keep still, Reeha.” Angela muttered, coating her cheek with another layer of makeup cover up. Some brand from Russia. The best, according to Angela (and yes, she believed her, Angela always did impeccable work with research – no matter what the cause). “It’s still drying.”

“Sorry.” She mumbled. She didn’t turn her head this time, but her eyes did shift to stare at Winston with wide-open eyes and desperation. “But seriously, Lena can take my place.”

Winston stared back at her flatly.

“No. She can’t.” He snarked out bluntly. “Lena appears to young and furthermore, Vishkar makes everyone go through high security to get into their facilities. Even if Lena uses her AOE chrono-accelerator, the one I made for when she’s at home and doesn’t have a giant glowing thing strapped to her chest, you really think Vishkar won’t recognize a chrono-accelerator passing through their scanner?”

“Well…”

Winston raised a brow.

“Fareeha. They’d figure out who Lena is in an instant.”

Fareeha jutted her lips. Well she tried (for both herself and Lena). Lena booed loudly, throwing herself backwards once more into the couch. She reached out to Winston from her supine position.

“I thought we were friends Winston. Pleaaaase.”

The door to the bathroom swung open, creaking at the hinges. A half-dressed Mccree popped out, shaving cream all over his face. It wasn’t difficult to tell he was smiling though, from the way his eyes were crinkled, eagerly waiting to hear more of the drama.

Winston took off his spectacles.

“Lena, do you think you’re the only one not happy they can’t go? I want to go to, but sadly because of my genetics.” He pointed at his face. “They’d know exactly who I am immediately as well, which is why I can’t go either. How many talking apes are there on Earth? The answer is not many. In fact just one. Me.”

“Booo.”

“Don’t boo me. You know I’m right.” Winston groused. He rubbed his glasses with a cleaning cloth. “How ‘bout this? If we ever need eyes at rave, you’ll be the first to be called.”

“Yeah Lena, wait your turn.” Mccree chimed in, making the situation worse with his goading remarks. “Leave this to us _professionals_.”

Lena made an affronted noise.

“You? Professional? Mr. Shaving-cream-all-over-my-face?”

Mccree wagged his finger at Lena and shook his head side to side sagely, a picture that looked silly from how his shaving cream was now dripping all over his chest and sliding from his cheeks down to his neck. Being dressed in only a bath towel also did not help his case.

“This is all to become the part, Lena. I have to change my look and I’m willing to do so. Because I’m a _professional_.”

“You can’t even act!”

“Excuse me.” Mccree gasped out, putting a hand to his heart dramatically. “Darling, I’ll have you know that I’m a fairly good actor. When I was off doing my own thing, I had made an investigative journalist up called Joel Morricone who documented my achievements. Yes. That famous journalist. Bet you didn’t know that was me, did ya now?”

Lena looked frankly, disgusted by this revelation.

A blank face of disappointment etched on her usually jubilant features.

To be fair, she was too.

“…You made a fanboy alter ego… about yourself?”

“Wow, Jesse.” Fareeha remarked dryly, not sure what to feel about the gall of the man she thinks of as a brother. “You really went there?”

She had kept up somewhat with Mccree’s life after Overwatch, keeping the occasional tab on him despite losing all direct forms of communication for a while. She had seen the articles written by ‘Joel Morricone’ and felt her chest puff up in solidarity, happy that someone else saw Mccree for the good man he really is.

Despite everything.

Never did she think that the man writing those pieces… was actually Mccree himself.

“Wow. What’s with all this judgment I’m suddenly sensing?” He started to take steps back into the bathroom. “You know what, I’m just going to go finish up cleaning myself. One final note though,” He twiddled his fingers at Lena. “Sucks to be you~.”

Then he shut the door to the bathroom.

Lena was fuming. She sat cross-legged and cross-armed on the couch, hunched into herself, seething and pouting at Winston, who was trying his best to ignore the petulant glare of his best friend. Smartly, he started to check ‘important emails’ he had received from other officers.

“There we go.” Angela breathed out. Fareeha’s eyes shifted back forwards. “All done, Fareehali.”

While Angela may have said she was finished, she wasn’t done admiring her handiwork, tilting Fareeha’s head by the chin side to side. Examining the finished product (her face caked with makeup) from all angles.

“Now remember, it’ll take a while to completely dry and then I have to spray you with something to set it. So no touching.”

She grunted a confirmation.

“And here.”

Angela handed her manila envelope. Fareeha opened it. Out dropped a fake passport, along with other sources of false documentation and a dossier filled with details about her new identity and a little bit on Angela’s and Mccree’s. She flicked through the records. There was a lot of pages to this.

“I highly advise that you start memorizing now, Fareehali. You need to know everything in this file like the back of your hand and it’s a lot to get through.”

“Yes ma’am.” She muttered dourly and started to flip through the pages. “Will do.”

\---------------------------

Fareeha stepped out of the bathroom.

“Ya amar, can you help me with this?” She asked holding her embroidered navy necktie in one hand. Her other hand conveniently popped the white club collar of her thinly striped shirt, ready for the aid. “I need to do a Windsor knot, but for the life of me, I can’t get it quite right.”

Angela gasped.

She ignored the outstretched piece of satin and bounded over to cradle Fareeha’s face, thumbs resting near her earlobes and fingers lightly grazing the back of her neck. Making sure not too smear the makeup on her cheeks by touching that area at all.

“Oh you look so good, schatzeli!” Angela cooed. “With your rounded reading glasses and slightly curly hair. The cutest engineer to ever be alive, if I may say so.”

Fareeha grumbled, feeling her face heat up and hoped the makeup over her tattoo would not melt under the heat. Angela assured her the cover up was heat-resistant and smudge-resistant, but the fear still prevailed in her heart. It was resistant, not impervious. She withdrew Angela’s hands away from her face gently, not wanting to hurt the woman or damage her recently dried nail polish.

“Thank you. You look as lovely as ever too-” And Fareeha briefly grinned at the charmed smile Angela gave her. It was true. She did fall for Angela when she looked like this. As dark haired, violet-eyed, ‘Veronica Mueller’ – “But please…” She held up the necktie between them. “I really do require a little bit of assistance.”

Angela nodded.

“Of course.”

Angela looped the soft satin around her neck and started to get to work, tying the fabric into a perfectly aligned Windsor knot – just like her false identity, ‘Reem Al-Jassim’, liked it. Uptight engineer-turned-advisor for business mogul and investor ‘Walter C. Jacobs’ from Kentucky. An eccentric recluse who had found their interest peaked by Vishkar as of late. A recluse not by choice, but rather from a rare disease as the story goes, that made it troubling to be out frequently – henceforth why ‘Dr. Veronica Mueller’s’ services were employed after she ‘left’ GSM.

They were scheduled to have a three day trip in their premises to allow Vishkar to properly showcase all their latest developments that began tomorrow at eight o’clock sharp. A trip only possible because Vishkar was so eager to get their hands on another wealthy patron.

She couldn’t believe she was roped into this.

“There. All good.” Angela stated as she finished tying the knot for Fareeha. “Not too tight?”

Fareeha shook her head and buttoned up her black vest over the tie.

“No. It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Are you okay?” Angela inquired tentatively, fixing her popped collar (she had forgotten she had popped it up). “I know you didn’t want to do this…”

Fareeha worked her jaw. She didn’t. Granted her role didn’t require her to change too much about herself, since her face is luckily not internationally recognized, but she was a straight-forward and honest soul. It didn’t sit quite right with her – this whole espionage business with false identities and all. Lying to people to get what they need, even if the organization said people worked for was in possible collusion with a terrorist organization.

Most of their employees probably didn’t know what sordid things their higher-ups were getting into.

It wasn’t their fault.

And now she was going to lie to them. About everything.

She stared down at Angela, looking lovely in a work dress, black pumps and a slim fitting jacket. Her teardrop earrings framed her face beautifully, just like her spectacles. Those thin-framed rectangle spectacles she hadn’t seen for so long and had missed.

The new half-rimmed research spectacles Angela sometimes wore had nothing on them.

She gave Angela a lopsided smile.

“Well, I can’t say I like it.” She said truthfully. Again, she was an honest soul. And as a general rule of thumb, she tended not to lie to Angela. “But, at least there’s one bright spot.”

Angela cocked her head.

“And what’s that?”

“Well…” She moved her head side-to-side, pausing for dramatic effect. She raised a hand to waggle her rounded spectacles. “Now we can say we’re that gross matching couple – even in _disguise_.”

Angela laughed, a light tinkle of a laugh that she covered with her back of her hand.

“Silly girl.” She mused out when her laughter tapered off. “You really okay?”

Fareeha nodded, waving off Angela’s concern.

“I’ll live, Dr. ‘Mueller’.”

“That’s good to hear, Ms. ‘Al-Jassim’.”

Two loud knocks on the door brought them out of their little world. Mccree opened the door and Fareeha couldn’t help the way her mouth dropped open. She clicked her tongue, impressed with her best friend.

Mccree upturned his nose and Fareeha swore it grew bigger.

“I know. It’s great, right?” He cackled as he twirled his now blonde handlebar mustache. “I really do look the part of a rich white man with too much money and not enough sense.”

Angela squealed from beside her.

“Mccree- I mean.” She curtsied with a bow. “Mr. Walter C. Jacobs, now don’t you just look incredible?”

Mccree chortled.

Not his usual laugh. It was somehow more obnoxious than usual, bellowing and deep and a register too loud. Must be the laugh that he made just for this occasion to play this mogul.

She frowned.

Just how deep into his role did Mccree go?

(And did she, do enough?)

She hoped so. She did exactly what was expected from her in her own dossier in any case.

“What can I say,” He said grandly, shrugging obnoxiously. “I’m a man of many talents.”

Fareeha pursed her lips and pushed up her glasses as she stared at the two very important people in her life currently in the room, completely immersed in their new roles and ready to engage in a bit of corporate espionage in order to help save the world.

Either this was going to go really well… or end up in disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are spies. Totally Spies! ~~Clover, Alex and Sam~~ Mccree, Pharah and Mercy.  
>  Mccree looks like his Gambler skin. Mercy is back as Veronica Mueller, and Fareeha is just her, with rounded reading glasses and slightly wavy curls. No drastic change in her part except the cover up of her tattoo because she’s not as internationally recognized as Jesse and Angela (I headcanon-ed that she only worked for HSI Egypt).


	4. Showroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case y'all forgot how they look like:  
> Mccree is in gambler skin (non-combat prosthetic fitted, so the sleeves can roll down over it. Makes sense as he is a mogul not a combatant). Angela looks like Veronica Mueller again, and wearing something like this: [Click here](http://imagedesignconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Sheath_Navy_wJacket.jpg)  
> Fareeha is wearing rounded spectacles and something like this: [Click Here](https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.53777:1498925572/image/jpeg.jpg?f=16x9&w=1024&%24p%24f%24w=2589da4)

The miles and miles of barren desert around them acted as a testament to the technological might of Oasis. A city that proved the worth of having Omnics and mankind try and mutually prosper. Together, they fought the odds and created a wondrous place in a desolate bastion the world had written off since long ago as too inhospitable of an environment to thrive in. Fareeha may hail from a country of sand herself, however unlike Oasis, Egypt was helped into fruition by its port cities and the waters of the Nile, a river that without her barren country would have housed no life past its coastal towns. Oasis in contrast received nothing from the land, yet it stood proud and tall as one of the most advanced cities the world has ever witnessed.

And that, made Fareeha understand how significant Oasis is as a symbol of the future.

Fareeha’s fingers danced, idly tapping the hand-made and leather-stitched steering wheel of their borrowed luxury sedan. They moseyed along the tarmac unhurriedly, a smooth, smooth ride on platinum rimmed wheels and spacious seats. She hummed along with the old tune that crackled out of the radio, fuzzed around the edges from distortion, a leisurely jazzy melody that made her heart beat slow and her body to sink further into the driver’s seat.

A small smile, a quirk at one corner of her mouth, graced her otherwise stoic features.

To others the sight around them may spark feelings of desolation and boredom and maybe regret at starting such a journey. Fear of a flat tire, running out of gas, or expending all electric fuel before crossing a pit stop could dig into the hearts of the more paranoid. Given an hour or two, she too might feel the same way. For the moment though, travelling the fixed roads in a well-maintained vintage luxury sedan with an endless view of oceans of sand elicited emotions of another kind.

Fareeha rolled down the window a crack and turned down the aircon two dials. The smell of heated sand and dry arid winds whipped in, filling her nose and caressed her cheeks. She breathed in deeply and then released a wistful sigh. The smile on her face broadened.

They may be in Iraq, but god did she feel like she was home.

Traversing through the Arabian Desert stirred all sorts of memories in her, and with it, a little bit of homesickness. And perhaps, not all the memories she’s had in valleys of sand conjured only joy in her heart (the remembrance of losing her legs, the horrors of being in the forefront of Egypt’s many wars and the failures she’s had on such territory under duress bubbled forth different type of emotion that felt… unpleasant to say the least). However, the majority of memories that came rushing forth were kind.

Nice.

Nostalgic.

The kind of memories that she often savored in the dead of night before she fell into the slumber, blanketed by the feelings that accompanied the images her mind fabricated for her recollections.

Like playing kabaddi with friends and comrades alike.

The warmth of the easily dividing ground as she sunk her knees and elbows into the pliant sand below while latching onto a raider. Wincing as hot grains sprayed from kicking feet and thrashing hands directly onto her face, yet laughing all the while from the excitement pumping in her veins. Sticking out her tongue through her teeth like the mischievous child she never got to be and waggling her brows in defiance when they called her out on the unfair advantage of having cybernetic legs.

Or of travelling food caravans that had recipes from regions she had yet to set foot on.

An image her mind frequently entertained as nothing more than a mirage induced by the desert heat when one would pass by when she was on duty. Until the smells that wafted from inside grew too strong to deny. To be anything but reality. And in her memories, she would never fail to exchange more than a few rusted, scratched up coins covered in dirt from her linen pockets, eager for a taste of whatever delicacy they had prepared in their moving kitchen. One time it had been _sayadeya_ from a famous food caravan that hailed from Alexandria. The dish was prepared with the most succulent of fish and Fareeha had marveled at how fresh the fish had kept during its travels all the way to Cairo.

Most of all, the sand reminded her of her family – both of blood and from bonds.

Her mother’s relatives, who all chipped in to help raise her whenever the world whisked Ana Amari away. Mervat from the open-air markets, running her profitable café and handing her freebies on occasion when she visited. Emirhan, the first superior she cared for on a personal level, a man who always had her back no matter what. The rest of her comrades, all in her mind as well.

She couldn’t forget them nor could she list all their great attributes if she tried.

And of course, Angela.

The desert sand was a deep reminder of Angela.

Of meeting the woman again and falling in love with her all over again.

After ages.

After more than a decade.

After Fareeha had grown up from being a gap-toothed little girl who often punched above her weight and had her head in the clouds. A gangly teenager with too much to prove to the world and herself. A somber twenty-some year old with no love in her heart for anything except the vapid pursuit of being seen _as_ a hero, not quite understanding what it meant to _be_ a hero... After all that. Meeting her only once she was in her thirties and remembered once more what was truly important.

And to think that it all began one hot afternoon in a tent set up on sand.

A day where she was nursing a bruised pride and an even more bruised body from a clash with a smoke devil. A day that she would have written off as terrible if it didn’t accidentally spark a chance reunion with the first woman that made her heart flutter.

And now continued to do so.

Forever more.

Her eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror, momentarily taking them off from the road to check on the other two passengers who lounged comfortably in the back seats. There was no one on the straight and lonely road except them anyways. She could rest easy with no fear of crashing into a single soul by looking away from the road for more than a few seconds.

And if a being materialized out of thin air then so be it. She would willingly through barrel straight into it, because only that wraith of a monster had that sort of ability anyways.

She does not think anyone would be sad to see that thing end up as road kill.

Mccree was splayed on his seat with his phone whipped out and Fareeha can only assume the camera function was set up from the way he held the device up to his face. His mouth was wide open as he tilted his phone into his gaping maw. The man was utterly fascinated by the golden molar Winston implanted to replace his normal milk-white replacement incisor.

A dental implant first provided by Overwatch right after his recruitment.

Apparently he had lost that tooth long ago at the age of fourteen from picking a fight with an older Deadlock gang member to gain respect.

He always explained that it didn’t go well for him, picking that fight. Fareeha thought otherwise. His ploy worked well enough for him to stay in the Deadlock gang for a couple more years. Not that it was such a good thing to be in that gang, however it was good at that time.

Because though Mccree never got into it too much, Fareeha knew his life must have been tough.

It was the right choice for that time, even if it seemed stupid now.

Because no one joins a gang as vile as Deadlock so young unless they had no other option. Not even from misinformed dreams or romanticized notions about what it meant to be part of a notorious gang like that – reality would shatter those false preconceptions on the first day.

The gold veneer glinted in the mirror reflection, a deliberate addition to the special molar implant Winston and his team chose to further elevate Mccree’s ostentatious mogul persona to another level. The devil was in the details, Winston had remarked and Fareeha was inclined to agree.

Little things did matter. They piled up.

They made a character believable.

Functionally, the molar implant was designed so Mccree would be able to hear them through a telecom link made from that tooth. It would send the communications directly to his brain somehow (Angela tried to explain it at length before trailing off to giggle at her thoroughly confused expression). The point was that it worked. Fareeha did not think such technology existed.

Yet Winston was a talking and intelligent ape – living proof that anything was possible in this day and age.

She shouldn’t have been skeptical.

_You’ve outdone yerself, Winston. It feels like y’alls voices are ringin’ in my head._

_But how ‘bout if I need to talk back?_

Winston had grinned ear-to-ear, puffing up his chest in pride as he redirected their attention to Mccree’s new gold watch. Mccree had gasped.

_Don’t tell me-!_

_S-spy watch?!_

(It was at that moment in time that everyone made sure _not_ to look in Lena’s direction – the woman undoubtedly puffing up her cheeks and staring with the sourest of expressions that dripped of envy)

_Oh, you better not be pullin’ my leg!_

The watch for him was fitted with a mic, a sleep dart with a six-foot range, and a recorder that saved a total of an hour’s worth of recording. The latter two were activated by a click of a button (different buttons on the watch of course), and the mic, activated by landing a certain proximity to the molar implant. It seemed counter-intuitive at first, that choice in activation, until Mccree’s alias’s constant habit of twirling his mustache was taken into account. The small tic would allow Mccree to hover the watch directly over his lips and activate the mic without causing so much as a scene as constantly fiddling with his watch would have.

_You’re truly a genius, my friend. Overwatch just would be at a loss without ya._

_I mean it._

(Winston had appeared extremely touched by the praise and Fareeha was glad that Mccree was a natural sweet-talker for once – it occasionally could be used for a good thing)

(Occasionally)

After Mccree stopped gushing… Well, not exactly. More like once Mccree wasn’t clamoring over Winston anymore, he presented both her and Angela with their own spy watches. Fitted with a sleep dart and recorder only. Their mics, came in different forms.

Fareeha glanced back at the road.

Still nothing. Only flat, recently reworked tarmac going in a straight line.

She looked back at the rearview mirror and focused on Angela this time. The woman was currently wasting the time away with a crossword book. The worn book was nearing its end from what Fareeha could see, only a couple pages left from where she had it opened. Angela was chewing the tip of her pen with her teeth to oblivion, brow furrowed and Fareeha smiled lopsidedly at the deep concentration Angela exuded from attempting to solve the puzzle.

Was it yet another crossword puzzle in Arabic?

Like she felt Fareeha’s stare, Angela lifted her head and their eyes locked from the mirror reflection.

Angela beamed, a darling smile that reached her eyes and seemed as sweet as wine. It was a pretty sight and as warmth bloomed in her, Fareeha wondered if that looks alone could actually be enough to get her a little drunk. Surely it couldn’t be normal to be so affected, to feel such warmth pool in the stomach, by something as simple as a smile after dating a person for so long. She coughed from a sudden well of embarrassment at the thought and trained her eyes squarely back onto the open road.

“Jeeves-” Mccree bellowed obnoxiously, cutting into her thoughts as he pushed at the back of her seat with his foot repeatedly- “How much further?”

The GPS in the car beeped. A smooth voice decides to rings out at that moment, charged from underneath the hood and out of the speakers into their ears. Lower than Athena’s and with a hint of an accent she couldn't quite place. She wondered which of Lucio's rich associates did this car actually belong too.

_Vishkar Corporation: Arabian Desert Location nearing._

_Continue straight for the next 10 miles._

_ETA: 25 minutes._

_On-schedule._

“Why thank you, Genevieve. And no thanks for you, Al.”

He kicked her chair again. She doubled over, nose almost hitting the wheel.

Fareeha squared her shoulders and rammed her seat back with momentum in retaliation to Mccree’s kicks.

“Quit it. And don’t call me Jeeves.” _It is worse than the time you wouldn’t stop calling me King Tut-_ “Secondly, did you really name this car Genevieve, Jesse?”

No response from the passenger behind her.

Fareeha sighed.

“Jesse, we’re not even there yet.”

Still no response. Fareeha groaned and grumbled. She flexed her fingers and then gripped the wheel harder.

“Did you name this car Genevieve, Mr. _Jacobs_?”

Jesse chortled, right from his belly and Fareeha was glad her alias was a dour person. She does not believe she could keep judgment out of her eyes if Allah himself came down from the heavens to tell her to do just that. She does not believe anyone in the world with a clear mind would be perfectly alright with sharing the same space as the shameless mogul persona Mccree has adopted. The sound of his newly made bellow continued to grate on her ears as hard as the first time she heard it.

So did all his other features at current actually.

From the simple way he hemmed and hawed when he was thinking to the obnoxious way he chewed his special brand of watermint dinner mints between puffs of his cigar.

“It is indeed the name I have bestowed upon this car. Let her be known from now until eternity as Genevieve.” He said aloud in a preacher’s tone as he stroked the middle side-arm lovingly, tracing the velvet top. “Isn’t she just a beaute?”

“…Yes.” Fareeha agreed tiredly, though she meant it. “She certainly is.”

Modern vehicles hovered – save for military vehicles that preferred the tried and true method of staying already planted on the ground in case shit started to go down and old travel buses whose owners were too cheap to consider upgrades. Her family did not stray from this trend, owning a couple hover-tech cars in their names as well. Yet Fareeha couldn’t help the fascination she had for fancy vintage models that still ran on four wheels like this car. Something about the way the gears all had to work together in perfect sync for it to run and the feel of the ground below her as it ran brought inexplicable joy.

Perhaps one day, she’d own one of these vintage models.

When she had the time.

She would fix it up and then drive on the open roads near sunset. Thinking of nothing for a few hours. Her only companion the roar of the engine under the hood and the whistle of the wind as she shredded through the roads, burning the rubber of her tires. And maybe Angela, if she wanted to come along.

She’d never force her.

The ride went on in relative silence once more after that, except for the occasional sound of scratching on paper as Angela continued to finish the crossword and the squeaks of the clutch as Fareeha switched gears.

That is, until Fareeha herself broke it.

“There it is.” She muttered, amazement tinging her usually flat delivery. “Vishkar corps.”

Vishkar Corporation: Arabian Desert Location was not a building.

It was a mega complex.

The size of the lot it is built upon looked large enough to house a small town’s population with ease and it called into question why it seemed pertinent for them to enter Oasis’ market when they could already achieve _this_.

The infrastructures in the complex was topped with large domes made of bullet-proof glass and supported by immaculate walls adorned with fine details carved right into the surface. The feel of the place was both modern and stylish, though hints of the traditional architectures of this nation continue to prevail in subtle manners within the design, making the place be a fantastic blend of new and old. The security cameras as well were abundant along with artfully hidden. If she was a regular citizen, she would have not been able to place even one of the cameras, all practically concealed from their unique designs and impeccable placement choices. Fareeha ran a tongue across her teeth, the ramifications that they were really about to do espionage in the compound of a secure and technologically capable multi-corporation giant truly hit her full force for the first time. She pursed her lips and tightened her grip on the wheel.

This was not, going to be an easy job.

\-----------------------

The car door swung open.

“My lady.” Fareeha teased in light tones. There was a hint of a smile on Fareeha that brightened her features. One that played in her eyes more than anything else. Angela giggled at the silliness and graciously accepted the outstretched hand, eagerly allowing Fareeha to help her out of the car. Fareeha then held up a suitcase with the supposed medical equipment for their boss for the day (or three days, if she was to be pedantic about it) after she locked the car with a click of a button. “Would you like me to carry this instead? It’s rather heavy.”

“That’s nice of you, but-” She removed the suitcase gingerly from Fareeha’s grasp- “It is rather telling if the medical professional is not the one holding the suitcase filled with the supposed medical equipment at all times.”

“You have a point.” Fareeha conceded with a bow. “My apologies Dr. _Mueller_.”

“Your apology is accepted, Ms. _Al-Jassim._ ”

They shared a secret smile for a brief moment. Then a thick smoke blew in between-them, ceasing their merriment with a foul-smelling reminder of reality. Angela crinkled her nose and turned towards their offender.

“Alright, enough with all that.” Mccree drawled, holding his cigar between his fingers and thumb. “We are all James Bond now, so fully immerse yourselves in your roles my darlings. And don’t get mad at me, for doing mine. Walter C. Jacobs is somethin’ alright and not in the good way.”

Angela nodded and adjusted the Bluetooth speaker hooked on her ear.

She admitted she lucked out in terms of telecom links considering that as the medical professional/personal assistant of eccentric Mr. Walter C. Jacobs it did not look out of place for her to have such a device at hand, on her ear, at all times. The only drawback though was for her Bluetooth earpiece to seem realistic, throughout the day she was to expect a number of AI’s dropping into her ear with fake updates and reports on the status of the supposed company and stocks Mccree had. Reports and updates she had to answer with specially prepared responses already discussed back at the Overwatch base.

Fareeha adjusted her tie and reset the silver white handkerchief in her vest pocket.

The glass doors to the entrance slid open.

“Welcome, Mr. Jacobs!” A spry man exclaimed, greeting them warmly. He was flanked by two assistants. One man and one woman, both dressed in the same purple and white garb he wore. All three wearing rounded over-ear technology that appeared akin to flat white discs. “We have been anxiously waiting your arrival. I am Sanjay – we spoke on the phone.”

Mcree tipped his hat.

“Finally got a face for the name. Pleasure’s all mine, Sanjay.” He drawled, offering a hand with a full-bodied grin etched on his face. Brown eyes twinkling underneath the shade of his hat like he was privy to some sort of secret. “Vishkar seems one of a kind.”

Sanjay smiled, pleased by the warm response. He pumped Mccree’s hand twice.

“I promise you it is.”

Light brown hair, square nose, clean-shaven, relatively young looking. Sanjay Korpal is a famous negotiator that worked in Vishkar’s ranks, though some of his record has been peppered with a few black spots if rumors were to be believed. Lucio at least, seemed quite certain (the anger that rolled of him undeniable as he recounted the story) that the man had at least a hand in the explosion that caused Vishkar to successfully enter Rio in the first place.

Before they were justifiably kicked out.

“Oh, you parked your own car?” Sanjay commented off-handedly, looking over their shoulders to their shiny black sedan. “You didn’t have too. We have excellent valet that could have, and most certainly would have, done that for you to spare you the trouble.”

“The VIP section right here.” Fareeha spat out gruffly, tilting her head at the row of parking for special guests’ right in front of the lobby. Her eyes narrowed. She appeared convincingly miffed. “How stupid you think I am?”

“I wasn’t trying to imply that you were Ms. Al-Jassim.” Sanjay responded wide-eyed in poorly concealed alarm, probably wondering how he had stumbled into an error so quick. Mind racing to rectify his apparent blunder. “I was simply stating that out of convenience perhaps next time you could simply use our valet system. There is no charge for it if that was what you were worried about-”

Fareeha took a step forward, mouth bared into an ugly showing of teeth.

“And why should I trust you?”

Their guide became at a loss of words at that, face white and a sheen of sweat building in his pores. His assistants were not better off, staring as worriedly from his sides. Angela could hear their minds go into overdrive to salvage the situation. If they lost their valued customers before they even stepped foot in Vishkar’s doors, there would be no question they all would be forced to resign.

Angela too, was at a loss for words.

Fareeha’s character was supposed to be a defensive and taciturn grouch, but coming off so strong right now may not be in their best interests. They needed these guides to slip up, not to stay on their toes. She needed to break the growing tension and needed a plan to break it fast.

And as if he read her mind Mccree kicked into gear first, smacking Fareeha upside the back of the head. The woman withheld a wince, scowling as she fixed her spectacles. They had bumped off into a lopsided tilt from the hit. She stared at Mccree with confusion.

“Al, how many times do I gotta tell you to be nicer? Honestly. Can’t take you anywhere.” Mccree tutted and shook his head woefully. He tipped his hat at Sanjay. “I do apologize for all of that. Despite the thorns on this girl, she’s a fine, fine engineer. I do hope she can still come into the building, else I unfortunately have to take my business elsewhere.”

“Pardon? Elsewhere?”

“See, I don’t know much ‘bout all this,” He waved his hand carelessly in the buildings direction, upper class southern twang on full force as he continued his spiel. “So if I don’t have someone I can trust out here to assess your work, I’m out – and we both don’t want that, now do we?”

“Of course not.” Sanjay replied quickly, assistants nodding as quickly from either side of him. “We wouldn’t want that at all. It was my fault for saying such a thing anyways since you have already parked, uh, Ms. Al-Jassim. There is no problem on her part. In fact,” He bowed at her. “Ms. Al-Jassim I do hope you accept my sincerest apologies about anything I implied with my words. It was not my intention.”

Fareeha simply stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked away.

Mccree shook her shoulder again as he stared down at Sanjay, eyes twinkling, mirth on lips.

“Again, I do apologize about the manners of this girl. She’s just a little crankier than usual from the jetlag. It’s a long way from Kentucky.”

Mccree then removed his hand from Fareeha’s shoulder to clap Sanjay hard on his shoulder. Enough force that Angela could see the way he fought back a grimace, trying his best to keep that professional customer service smile on his face.

“And believe me when I say, I truly appreciate how understanding you have shown yourselves to be.”

He nodded.

“Yes. Of course, Mr. Jacobs. Anytime.”

Mccree nodded surreptitiously and took a long drag of his cigar, swirling the smoke on his tongue before breathing it out from his mouth and nostrils with the deep rumble of a bull. He removed his hand from Sanjay’s shoulder who discretely rubbed at the sore spot, faking an action of fixing his jacket to hide it.

“Atta boy.” Mccree chuckled out with a grin then craned up his neck to look at the massive complex before them. He let out a long whistle and looped his thumbs on his belt. “Now that’s a damn fine building. I can see why y’all are so proud of it, Mr… Uh,” He scratched the back of his neck and cocked his head inquiringly at Sanjay, mustache twitching with the quirk of his mouth. “Now what was yer name again?”

The man bowed, along with his two assistants who flanked him.

“It is Sanjay Korpal, sir. But please, as in our previous correspondences, Sanjay is fine.” He pointed to his assistants. “This is my assistant Mr. Yudav and my junior assistant Ms. Aggarwal. Do not hesitate to direct any questions you may have to them as well. They are here to help you with every need you could possibly have on this three-day excursion.”

An ugly chuckle escaped Mccree then and there, as disgusting as the smoke that leaves his cigar. Dark and corrosive, the kind that clung onto a person hours after a smoking session. He fixed his belt buckle, shifting his weight onto one foot as he cocked his head up high, chin up to the sun. A leery smile grew on his face, punctuated by the upward lift of his cigar that was trapped between his teeth. His golden molar glinted as it peeked through his grinning lips.

His gaze is demeaning in every way as he centered his attention onto Ms. Aggarwal.

“Help me in any way, huh? Got a first name, sugar?”

His delivery, not much better.

“It is Sonam, sir.”

“So-nam, huh?” He breathed out patronizingly. “Pretty name.”

Mccree’s eyes rake up and down the length of her body so lasciviously that it made even Angela’s skin crawl (and she knew it was simply an act and Mccree didn’t mean any of this undertone seriously).

“Prettier frame. Good manners too.” He twirled his mustache. “I like a woman who knows well enough to call me sir.”

Ms. Aggarwal’s smile does not slip a fraction, but Angela can see that hint of discomfort that she tried so desperately to hide at the creepily delivered lines. The clenching of the jaw, the regret buried in the eyes at joining this venture to take this spoiled mogul around, and the way she unconsciously hunched into herself ever so slightly like she was trying to hide her womanly frame somehow.

Angela lips thinned. Perhaps they should have reconsidered making Walter C. Jacobs such a sleaze ball who looked at feminine women as nothing more than pieces of meat. She sent Winston a text via PDA that perhaps they should lessen Jacobs womanizing ways.

Or rather, was in the process of doing so when Mccree pulled Angela by the waist roughly to his side.

She locked her phone screen immediately.

“Like my pretty assistant here. Beautiful face and voluptuous frame. Good girl too, always looking after my health.” His hand threatened to travel down south, teasing a motion of gliding over the thin material of her pencil skirt with lazy taps of his digits. “And maybe a little bit more later on.”

The innuendo was not lost on anyone.

From what she could see from the corner of her eye, Fareeha’s face was perfectly impasse, but she can practically hear the whistle of steam coming out of her ears from Mccree's suggestive actions. Act or no act, Fareeha hated it when people undermined her. It was touching and sweet and usually Angela would wholly welcomed an outburst on her behalf by the woman, but right now, any impulsive action by Fareeha would jeopardize their mission.

There were bigger fish to fry right now, so to speak.

And Mccree was only acting.

In fact, he was probably screaming the loudest internally at how smarmy he was.

He may be a player with honey-coated lines and heartbreaker eyes, but the man loves and respects women and would rather die than treat them the way Walter C. Jacobs does. There was a reason women loved him, whether noblewomen or plain Janes, a lady-in-waiting or a prostitute working the streets. Women weren’t conquests to Mccree, they were people and he never failed to give a woman respect. Doubly so for the women he bedded.

Angela grabbed Mccree’s hand as it continued its descent, which had been moving at a snail’s pace most likely for the reason of stalling for time – probably just _waiting_ for her to stop his shamelessness. Her snatch of his hand effectively stopped Mccree short of touching her rump and stopped Fareeha short from blowing a gasket.

“Mr. _Jacobs_ ,” She admonished, speaking to him like he was a youngster. He stared at her with a defiant grin etched on his face, but she saw it. The sincere relief in his eyes and the cold sweat that dripped from his brow from how close Angela had let him get. “I have been assigned by your father to monitor your health and _nothing_ more. You understand?”

Mccree removed his hand from her grip and shrugged, smarmy grin on his face.

“Ouch. Well, can’t say I don’t like a girl with some fire to her.” Mccree took one final drag of his cigar, savoring the taste with shut eyes and then tossed it away, crushing it under his foot. “Anyways, let’s head inside. This heat is starting to become rather unbearable. Southern summers are nowhere near as terrible, if you don’t mind me sayin’.”

“Of course, and I am certain you won’t be disappointed.” Sanjay said with confidence as he gestured inside, perking up at the notion that the excursion could finally begin. “Follow me.”

They followed Sanjay and his assistants into the building, glass doors opening automatically for them. As they walked in, Angela pretended to stumble from a misstep, the weight of her suitcase conveniently making her bump into Fareeha who steadied her immediately.

“Are you alright?” Fareeha said lowly, real concern in her eyes. “You should’ve worn smaller heels.”

“I am fine.” She chirped out as she readjusted, changing her grip on her suitcase. “Perfectly fine. Don’t worry about me, but thank you. I am Mr. Jacobs capable caretaker and will take care of him as well as myself just _fine_. You just focus on your job, alright?”

The double meaning is not lost on Fareeha.

At least Angela does not believe so when Fareeha’s eyes widen the tiniest of fractions before relaxing back into a dead state with an almost imperceptible nod. Her body language immediately cooled as well – and she wasn’t speaking literally from the grace of the cold air-con that blasted onto their frames immediately upon entering.

“You got it. Focus on the job.”

“Good.”

“Good.” Fareeha repeated and Angela could not help the feeling that the woman was teasing her, though her face remained grim-jawed. “Good, indeed.”

“Glad we understand each other.”

“Yup.” Fareeha popped out, a twinkle in her eye that betrayed the neutrality of the rest of her face. “So glad.”

Angela pursed her lips, suppressing the smile that threatened to break from the small banter. It wasn’t even good. Stupid Fareeha and her stupidly cute face. She shook her head and checked Fareeha in the shoulder as she moved past the woman and her fresh smelling cologne. She had to get away before they were exposed right there in front of the entrance doors, all because she couldn’t help flashing an adoring smile at ‘Al-Jassim’.

The glass doors behind them shut and she took a glance back.

Sensor above the sliding doors are similar to those in malls and other modern buildings. Entry to building at least to this level required no identification as of yet it seems. However-

Angela faced forward again and saw another glass door where past the true lobby existed.

-They weren’t exactly in the building as of yet, were they?

Instead, they were currently holed up in a small room (if she could call it that) partitioned from the main lobby only by glass walls that went from floor to ceiling. Four security guards, a scanner for people to go through, and a scanner for personal effects the only things occupying the room. Two of the security guard were situated in high chairs in front of the screen that displayed an x-ray of the contents of belongings that passed through the object scanner, while the other two stood guard to guide people through the visitor scanner. She zeroed in on the standing security guards. Her spectacles detected no baton nor other concealed weaponry. They did alert her however to the black matte gauntlets they had equipped on their right arms which stretched all the way to their respective elbows.

Quick database analysis by Athena indicated they were prototypes of Vishkar tools to manipulate hard-light in an offensive manner. These two must be part of Vishkar’s new program for hard-light security teams she had read about in some of her scientific journals.

She had mixed feelings as she gazed on the addition.

On one hand, the scientist in her was utterly fascinated and hoped to know more about this technology. Hard-light prosthetics may have a future in the medical world.

On the other hand, the pacifist in her was appalled, understanding that such an advancement in technology may cause new warfare techniques to be developed centered on using hard-light technology.

And she knew for a fact that such a future would be an inevitability given human nature.

(She wished that good intentions didn’t rot as often as it did, maimed for violent purposes it was never intended to be designed for)

Angela placed the suitcase into a provided bin and removed her Bluetooth speaker from her ear, making sure to switch off all open channels. She took her time as she fished out the PDA and wallet in her suit jacket to place into separate bin and made a show of removing her jacket to toss it in the bin as well when the security personnel waved her off and told her to keep her jacket. She then made her way in front of the scanner and discretely sucked in a deep breath as her suitcase went through the scanner.

It should be fine. There was technically only Mr. Jacobs’ medicine was in there – mostly duds in reality, though an adrenaline shot and a few basic chemical enhancers were also stored in there. Along with enough chemicals to produce a smoke bomb and large-scale sleeper gas in the event that they needed it and a couple other apparatuses.

Nothing that would raise any flags though, considering Mr. Jacobs apparent slew of conditions.

And both her Bluetooth device and PDA was encrypted.

She went through the scanner once she was called, the click of her heels muted by the rubber strip below.

The machine beeped loudly as she passed.

Her heart dropped then spiked. The technology-riddled watch around her wrist suddenly prickled against her skin and her technology-riddled spectacles weighed on her nose like a steel beam. She didn’t think it through, how to cloak the technology in these two accessories and now they were going to-

Mccree cackled easily and her heart rate normalized once more.

“You too? Got caught for my big old belt buckle here.” Mccree sang out as he readjusted his belt-buckle that served as a code-breaker as well. “I bet that for you it’s that damn logo on yer glasses and the company watch I handed out to all of you. Al over here beeped just the same way from the metal insignia on the side of her spectacles and the gold in the company watch.”

“Arms up.” The security guard ordered and she obeyed, allowing the man to pass the security wand over the length of her body. True to Mccree’s assumption, the wand beeped only when it passed her spectacles and the golden watch strapped to her wrist. The security guard stared at her flatly, making her sweat for a second or two, before nodding. He stepped off to the side. “Alright, you’re free to go.”

She swore she heard the other guard mutter something distasteful about rich patrons.

Inside her head, Angela was eternally grateful for the quick mouth Mccree had, his words and the blasé delivery causing the guards to not look in too closely to the items that beeped – chalking up that their sensors simply made a mistake due to an inordinate amount of metal incorporated in the accessories in the name of fashion and a show of prestige of the rich and prosperous. Or in this case, as is the case as well for people who worked for such ostentatious people.

Sanjay clicked on the passcode as Angela went over to retrieve her personal effects from the scanning machine. A digital retina scan appeared and scanned his eye as she fixed her Bluetooth speaker back on her ear, turning it on once more.

“ _Back online_ _already? Security is rather fast._ ” Winston commented in an amused tone that undulated his sentences. “ _Excellent, so we’re finally in. You’re doing great Mercy_.”

The pad on the wall took a second to verify the information received and then lit green in approval. The glass partition to the main lobby opened. They entered into the decadent lobby, stopping right at the center.

“ _Woah_.” Lena chipped in from the open line. “ _This is one expensive lobby_.”

Sanjay and his assistants turned on their heels, hands crossed behind their back and stared at them proudly.

Grand smiles etched upon their faces.

“Welcome to Vishkar.”

\-----------------------

The showroom was less of a show room and more of a show floor.

The large rectangular room was filled with rows of miniature replicas of Vishkar’s endeavors, neatly lined up in square displays around the room in an efficient manner. The placement of the displays was orderly to say the least, tiled neatly into rows with enough space between each model for three people to comfortably walk side-by-side as they immerse themselves in Vishkar’s many designs.

“I assure you that each and every model in this room is an exact copy of the life-sized models. And fun fact: Made of hard-light technology as well. Yes, the very same technology!”

It was surprisingly how jovial Yudav kept considering her lack of reaction to any of his statements. Most would give up, though she supposed people who’ve worked years in customer service in a multinational conglomerate were of a different breed.

The pay must be incredible, she guessed.

“Ah, this one was one of my favorite projects. Wish I could have been on the team.”

Fareeha made a non-committal hum and bent down, resting her palms on her knees as she stared at the particular display in front of them with her eye-level parallel to the ground of the model. The design was for a resort in the British Isles. She noted that it made particularly good work of the landscape, peppering the project with beautiful gazebos in the large garden area and taking advantage of the natural inclines and declines to give the whole place a special flair. Ultimately, the resort seemed quite lavish and Fareeha grimaced at the notion of paying for even a night in a place like this.

“Do you have any questions? I am more than happy to assist you.”

She rose up to her full stature and turned to Yudav, the guide assigned to follow her around. Sanjay was busy entertaining Mccree as the lead guide and negotiator. Ms. Aggarwal backing him up as an aid apparently. Kind of what Angela was for Mccree in their false narratives.

“No.” She gritted out. “Go.. away.”

Yudav scratched his nose.

“Um, we are your guides for the day and we can’t exactly leave you alone…”

She quirked a brow, jaw tight and lips downturned. Annoyance the only thing expressed on her features.

“That right?”

“Yes. I heard you liked to work alone,” No fear colored his tone. Neither reflected in his eyes. “But we are your guides.”

“Hmmm.”

She turned away from him again and walked briskly to another model. Yudav scurried after her quickly. She bent down in front of another model, staring at the manmade channels of water created for these condos by a waterfront. Yudav was hovering next to her anxiously, a smile still tacked wide on his face.

Definitely.

Being a guide for huge companies must be the worst.

The amount of emotional labor demanded was astounding.

She had been taciturn and provided no inclination as to where and what Mr. Jacobs was leaning towards, yet still Yudav stuck by her like glue. Smiling all the while that Stepford wife smile. She couldn’t discern yet the true reasons for his actions. Whether Yudav anchored himself to her so closely in order to ingratiate himself into her good graces through sheer force, or to keep tabs on her movements (perhaps ordered to do so by Vishkar so their clients do not find or dig into anything they weren’t supposed too). She thumbed at the logo on the side of her spectacles under the premise of adjusting her spectacles and snapped a photo.

When she refocused her attention on Yudav, he was smiling as nervously as ever.

Not a whiff of suspicion on his face.

It was the former she decided. Yudav was assigned to stick like glue to get into her good graces for supposedly it is her insight that will lead to Mr. Jacobs investing in them if she agreed with what they did.

Though she didn’t sweep constant surveillance completely off the table.

She has been wrong about a person’s character before.

And besides, perhaps Yudav did not notice, but Fareeha had quickly spotted the four cameras mounted on the four corner walls of this showroom. Maybe security was more observant.

Well, she hoped not. It would make this whole spying business even more difficult.

“Is something on your mind, Ms. Al-Jassim?”

She bypassed him again without a sparing thought. Fareeha shoved her hands into her pockets and tapped her foot. Her nostrils flared as she exhaled sharply through her nose. She ran her tongue across her teeth. She took another long look around the room and grimaced.

Nothing.

The showroom was providing her with nothing.

To be fair, it was to be expected (it would be bad press to have ‘Joint Venture with Talon in the Works’ anywhere in the showroom), but she thought she would find at least _something_. A hint of what was happening.

“Mr. Yudav…” She started, ignoring the way he perked up from her finally handing him a smidgen of attention. Fareeha glanced down to fiddle with the cufflinks on her button up as she spoke, turning the left cufflink clockwise three turns until she felt that small click. Her earpiece whined, disguised as a hearing aid. Telecommunications with Winston and Lena went live. “Are these models for future developments or the ones that Vishkar have already made?”

 _“Oh, turning on your commlinks in the middle of conversation?”_ Lena crackled in excitedly from the channel. _“That’s daring, love.”_

 _“Lena be quiet. She’s in the middle of a conversation._ ”

“ _Whoops. Sorry Winston- I mean, Fareeha- Well, both of you- er… I’ll shut up now.”_

Yudav wrung his hands together.

“It is a mix of both. Most of the projects on display are technological feats we have already completed. The displays with green boxes indicate complete, the ones resting on yellow boxes in development, and the ones in blue are future developments that have not gone past concept design.”

Fareeha nodded and looked around.

From a quick calculation it seemed that roughly eighty percent of the projects displayed were completed, fifteen percent in progress and five percent only concepts.

“Having trouble getting more jobs?” She said off-handedly as she walked over to the electronic bulletin board. “So few future developments…”

She started to click through, navigating slowly through the information bytes provided, keeping that look of seemingly none-too-interested and only doing all this for the sake of her boss. Or specifically, her paycheck. A face she had no trouble faking for she wasn’t faking it for the most part. The majority of articles displayed on this bulletin board were for investors or potential business partners like Walter C. Jacobs. Thus, the board was filled to the brim with fluff pieces or basic information, probably out of fear of short-circuiting the brains of people with deep pockets but a lack of aptitude in the scientific fields.

Filled with nothing of importance basically.

However, she did find it difficult to fight a grin of her face, and a crack of a smile briefed her features for a millisecond if she were to be perfectly honest, when she came across one of the old promotional posters of Vishkar from four years back. A picturesque city of what Rio de Janeiro could have been with Vishkar’s tagline splayed directly on the bottom.

_Building a Better Future for Humanity_

Lucio would not have kind words to say the least about this promotional poster.

She squashed it down though, her urge to smile. She had a job to do here and smiling was not part of it.

Getting answers were.

“Just as I suspected…” She whispered, adjusting her glasses. She tapped at her chin. “Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of future developments. Economy hitting you guys rough?”

She paused and walked over to nearby display, staring at the small twin-towers in Belfast. She looked over her shoulder with bored eyes at Yudav.

“Or running out of ideas?”

Accusation dripped from her otherwise flat tone.

“Certainly not!” Yudav protested. “We actually have plenty more ideas down the pipeline-”

“Oh?”

She turned and half-perched herself on the display, back pressing into the glass partition that rose up a couple inches to protect the model with a visible barrier. She fixed her glasses, turning on the live-cam feature. Winston and Lena could watch along with listening in this way. She crossed her arms and looked at Yudav disapprovingly, a raised brow.

“Then why are those projects not on display nor mentioned on the bulletin board?” She cocked her head and casually fiddled with her other cufflink as she stared him down, turning her other cufflink three rotations to the right. Mic should be on now (concealed as company badges pinned on either side of her club collar). “Are you hiding it from Mr. Jacobs?”

“No. We’re not doing anything of that sort-”

“Okay. Then if you’re not hiding it…”

Fareeha grumbled like this wasn’t worth her time as she reached into her vest to pull out a pen and notebook from the inside pocket. She took a moment to readjust her ruffled necktie then raised the pen up in front of her deliberately as she clicked it, maintaining full eye-contact with Yudav the whole time.

He stared back.

She flipped roughly to a blank page in her notebook.

“Let’s hear about all the projects not yet disclosed to my boss from this showroom. He’s a finicky man paranoid about his money. Vishkar’s endeavors need to be worth it and I am here to make sure they are. Don’t hold back now.” Her voice got lower and slower, a dangerous quality entering the mix. “And I advise that you do _not_ lie to me.”

Yudav nodded stiltedly, keeling under the weight of Fareeha’s glower.

“While Vishkar is mostly into real estate and creating architecture, we do have endeavors in other fields that may be of interest to Mr. Jacobs. There is a lot however, do you want to get a general understanding of all of them or…?”

“I’m not the guide here.” She responded sardonically and rolled her eyes. “You tell me, Mr. Yudav. What’s important?”

Lena buzzed in her ear again.

 _“Aw dude, this is so interesting.”_ Her voice was muffled as she spoke, an audible crunch breaking the flow of her sentences. It sounded like she was eating freshly popped kettle corn. “ _Also,_ _were you ever an interrogator, Fareeha? Because that was a good move. Well, guess you can’t talk right now. Uh, don’t mind me.”_

“Oh. Well…” Yudav begun. “Let’s see here… Oh, I know-”

Fareeha clicked her pen twice once more and began to write as he began to speak. She was intent to find a break, a slip, a fracture in his speech to things that were pervasively far more important to them. All the while watching his body language, keen to prey on a moment of weakness or misdirection should he so try it.

\-----------------------

She stopped him on the subject of future developments when he rounded back into it.

“Why did you build a complex two hours away from Oasis?”

Yudav’s jaw went shut and for the first time that day, he seemed uncomfortable for a reason other than her taciturn and thorny exterior. She kept her face schooled at his visibly tart reaction. She leant forward a little more, raising her brows, acting like she was only irritated by his sudden pause.

“Mr. Yudav?”

He pursed his lips and glanced in Sanjay’s direction.

“ _Oh, that’s interesting_.” Winston chimed. “ _Maybe Korpal wasn’t just dirty in Rio de Janeiro._ ”

“I’m sorry Ms. Al-Jassim.” Yudav said aloud with a heavy sigh. “That is classified information and I am not of a high level enough clearance to decide whether or not you can be privy to this sort of information. I do not even know if I can give you an NDA that you and your boss can sign for me to tell you about it.”

“So what can you tell me?” She fired back dryly as her gut churned with acid in anticipation for the next words she were too deliver. And god, she didn’t want too. It wasn’t her, but she _had_ too. Al-Jassim would say it. “Don’t tell me you’re useless. Great. Did I get stuck with a useless git?”

Yudav made a series of noises, affronted by the snidely delivered accusation and the insults to his character.

Internally, Fareeha cringed at the rudeness she just inflicted.

It really just wasn’t her style to say things like that.

Why did she have to play _such_ a dismissive asshole?

Yudav started to mumble under his breath, like he was internally debating with himself and trying to settle on some words that would not get him in trouble. He continually fixed his jacket as he whispered incoherently to himself.

Fareeha simply watched, notebook and pen still in hand.

“The government was…” He began after a minute or two, wetting his lips as he continued. “…Unwilling shall we say, to give us the permissions necessary to carry out work at their city. We made this complex to give us a headway into Oasis once we can prove that we are an asset to have in their premises.”

 _“Keep going with this line of questioning, Pharah.”_ Winston interjected, his deep register tickling her ear. “ _Get as much as you can with softball questions before asking anything that may make him potentially clam up permanently.”_

She nodded imperceptibly and put down the notebook, giving Mr. Yudav her full attention for the moment. She withheld the urge to drum her fingers by clenching and unclenching her toes, aware that displaying any of her usual ticks would be a ‘large no-no’ – Angela’s words, a childish choice of words used deliberately to cheer her up about going undercover.

The tactic didn't work so much on her due to the baby words as much as the simple fact that Angela was the one saying it.

That was what lifted her spirits, seeing Angela say something like that with that sparkle in her eye like it would actually work and she had just made the best plan ever (as cheesy as it was). And hey, perhaps she wasn't wrong. It did work, though not quite for the reasons she believed.

“And why would they believe Vishkar not to be an asset?” She gripped the notebook in her hands. “Vishkar has impeccable ratings and they seem to welcome any technological advancement.”

He shrugged and crossed his arms.

“Right? They accepted plenty other technology-based companies of lower pedigree than Vishkar, yet they reject our proposal to build a site in their city.” He wrinkled his nose. “The only reason I can think of is that the government must have a similar project they are spending their money on.”

“A project they adopted from hearing of yours?” She questioned. “I do not believe in coincidences in breakthroughs of technology.”

Yudav smiled and shook his head.

“I will not speak ill of Oasis as we are still trying to penetrate the market. And we will win this arms race against them. They may be a city, but Vishkar is strong and willing to do anything.”

No outright rejection. Oasis has heard of their plans.

Whether they have adopted similar projects is still up to debate.

‘Arms race’? Strange choice of words.

Not one that she was glad to hear be used in any case.

“ _Willing to do *anything*? Wooow, that sounds foreboding.”_ Lena commented as she crunched on whatever she was snacking on without any sign of constraint. Fareeha was fairly certain it was kettle corn now. “ _Hope you recorded that.”_

Shit, she didn’t.

She forgot to click her recorder on.

“ _Don’t worry, I’ve been taking notes.”_ Winston interjected. “ _Everything is fine, Pharah._ ”

In her mind she thanked Winston for his foresight. She had been taking a few notes herself, but she couldn’t very well take notes about that so obviously screamed of espionage. Briefly, she wondered how they could both be with her and not helping Mccree and Angela when she remembered that well, Angela was there. Cataloguing, note-taking and keeping records were practically second-nature skills to her. Probably a trait she honed from being in medicine.

It would be disastrous if she mixed up any drug she had to administer to people.

And by disastrous, she meant fatal.

Angela had spoken of it seriously, the importance of enunciating in the surgical room.

_Anafranil and Enalapril may sound phonetically similar, but they certainly did not have the same effect_

_Shout for the wrong one in the surgical room schatzeli, and a dead patient would be the result._

“Why not go elsewhere first?” Fareeha continued, almost resting her head on her hand before Angela’s voice blared in her head again, for a different reason this time ( _don’t touch your face, Fareehali. You might smear your tattoo cover-up!)_. She dropped her hand back down, holding the notebook in her lap with both hands once more and straightened her back. “Why is Oasis so crucial?”

“You seem rather interested…” Yudav countered. “Did Mr. Jacobs hear anything about this project?”

Fareeha backpedaled in her mind.

“No.”

Think.

 _“Say that Mr. Jacobs is an elitist.”_ Winston helpfully provided. _“He wants in on all the highest projects._ ”

Again, her savior Winston. To her rescue once more.

She’ll buy him a whole gallon of peanut butter after all this.

“The secrecy surrounding the project tells me it might be lucrative and incredibly advanced technologically wise.” She slid off the display box and pocketed her notebook and pen back, sauntering over to where Yudav stood. “It sounds like the kind of project Mr. Jacobs would be most interested in. How about you let us in?”

He stared back at her, a conflicted expression marring his face.

“Think about it. My boss is rich, connected and ready to invest if the tech is truly there. You and I both know that all this is not the core of Vishkar technology. It is the result of it, not the root of it. I am an engineer as well, Mr. Yudav. You cannot fool me.”

Yudav scratched his nose and stared at where the rest of their group stood.

“I have to talk about it with my superiors.”

Fareeha stared at him.

There we go.

Finally.

Some headway.

\-----------------------

She was momentarily alone as Yudav left her side to make a private phone call.

“Did you guys get all that?” She mumbled into her collar, straight into the pinned badges that concealed mics. “Well?”

 _“Yes we did. Good job, Far!”_ Lena praised. “ _Winston off trying to find more information on Oasis tech, and why it’s so important for whatever Vishkar’s planning. Anyways, he told me that you should tell Mccree about this secret project.”_

“Copy that.” Fareeha responded before turning her cufflinks counter-clockwise three rotations, shutting off both her mic and her telecom link with Winston and Lena. She adjusted her spectacles and turned off the video feed.

She would have kept it on for the whole day if she could, but battery life lasted only so long for such small devices.

She needed to be smart about it.

Fareeha walked over to where Mccree and the rest were still speaking, smoothing her tie and her hair on the way there. Reem Al-Jassim was a neat woman. Straight-forward, broody and with a bad temperament that was often on the defensive. It was funny how naturally it came to her, this woman with a large chip on her shoulder and too much repressed anger lacing her sentences. Perhaps she had a knack for this, though it did still send a nauseating chill up her spine with every lie that bubbled from her throat. Every word and insult and insinuation she does not mean. Or rather than a knack for it, perhaps being Reem Al-Jassim came naturally because she was Reem Al-Jassim in some ways before. At one point in time. Back in her roiling twenties.

She was a very different woman back then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This day one is not even over. OTL T.T  
> How did day one fit in one chapter in my storyboard???  
> Also, when Mccree calls Fareeha's alias 'Al' he does say it wrong, pronouncing it as 'Al' like in the name 'Allen' rather than 'Al' like in the name 'Alicia'.


	5. Luncheon

The six of them sat on a long table made for twelve. A long table in a large high ceiling room, a lone chandelier hanging above their heads, the silverware by their hands polished and engraved with the Vishkar logo. Four large windows stretched from floor to ceiling on one wall, allowing them to have a breathless view of much of the rest of the Vishkar facility. In the distance, across the desert sand and waving from the heat of the sun, was the outline of a nearby city.

Of Oasis.

The private room they were in had no music and one lone waiter stood at the corner near the door, a bottle of wine in a bucket of crushed ice beside him. To look at him would be to look at the many vacant seats on the table. It should have been slightly uncomfortable to be sitting here. An empty quiet should have pervaded the room from the lack of occupants.

But trust Mccree to find a way to make this small luncheon feel like a full house.

He was always good at that.

Being in the center of the crowd and making a place feel alive.

Weaving stories that could tantalize the most resentful and world-wearied of men and fascinate the imagination with the slow crooning from between his lips. An interesting time was sure to be had whenever Mccree walked in, spurs jingling to the jaunty tune of his whistles.

“Sit still, Mr. Jacobs.” She ordered as she fixed the strap around his bicep tighter. “I need to make sure your blood-pressure is fine.”

Mccree squirmed, moving his arm far too much for her liking.

“Veronica, enough. I love it when a woman fusses over me, but this is simply excessive.” He complained in his upper-class drawl, punctuating certain words and mirroring the almost disconnected flow of a southern preacher. “Just give me the shot and be done with it.” He gestured down at the plate before him. At the lobster tail with a side of mash potatoes and grilled asparagus, drizzled in respective sauces. “Food’s getting cold.”

“A shot? Are you perhaps allergic to something?”

Worry colored Mr. Yudav’s tone. Fareeha sat up straighter where she sat, brows furrowed, like she had a silent inquiry about just the same thing. Angela knew Fareeha was acting, but it did not make it any less strange for Fareeha to send such a distrustful look her way.

And by strange, she meant a curdling feeling in her gut.

Not the pleasant kind.

“No,” She said, answering for Mccree. “No allergies, but sometimes too much protein makes him woozy, so I must administer a simple shot to him before he can begin eating.” She opened her suitcase and pulled out a dud, a syringe filled with a serum that would do nothing. She steadied Mccree’s arm and injected him slowly, pushing all the liquid in with one fell swoop. “There we go.”

Mccree inspected his arm.

“So we’re done, darling?”

She nodded.

“We are done, sir.”

“ _Finally_.” He huffed out, rolling his eyes and rolling his sleeve back down. “Sometimes I feel like I should be made completely of Vishkar tech. This other arm of mine here.” Mccree waved his robotic limb around. “Never causes me any problems.”

“We are very glad to hear that. It is all good, you say?”

“It’s wonderful.”

Wonderfully expensive, Angela thought dryly, remembering how her eyes had bulged from learning of the price point. Thank goodness Lucio procured it for them.

“How long has it been since your last maintenance? We could give you a free routine check-up if you’d like since you are already here.” Mr. Yudav offered kindly and Angela felt sorry for how Fareeha had been treating him thus far due to her alias’ surly attitude. He seemed like a decent enough man. “It won’t take longer than half an hour unless we find some major complications.”

“Which will be done free of charge as well.” Mr. Korpal added, a far more disingenuous smile resting on his lips. “We value your well-being, Mr. Jacobs.”

Angela discretely pursed her lips. She cannot help but feel like the sentence was only half-finished. That the rest of the sentence involved ‘because you are a walking money-bag that will help increase our funds greatly’. She does not think she was wrong in her presumptions.

He turned to Fareeha.

“We can even fix yours up as well. Both of them. You’ve got quite the old model, I’ve heard. We can give you our latest ones for a decent price if you wish.”

Fareeha stared at Mr. Korpal blankly. Mccree waved him off with his hand.

“There ain’t no need for any of that. Neither of our prosthetics have their warranties, anyways.” He jutted his thumb at Fareeha. “Al over here likes to put a little spin on the prosthetics you gave us. Make it perfect for me and for herself. Little additions and removals here and there.” By that, what Mccree really meant was that they had taken out the tracker and the serial code (and other identifying features Vishkar may have incorporated in their tech to continually procure data on their consumers). “So I’m not really sure how well y’all will be able to go fixin’ any problems up if you do find any.”

“You can trust us.”

Mccree’s smile dropped, replaced with a sympathetic grimace. He breathed out deeply through his nose.

“No. I can’t.” He said pointedly then sighed. “…Don’t take it personally Sanjay, but I don’t trust others not to mess with me or screw me over. You know how people can be. Especially to a rich man such as myself. I can’t trust anyone, not without more rapport. I can’t even trust robots from the get-go. Look at the Omnic crises! One minute they’re your friends, the next they’re trying to take your head.” He shook his head. “The world is crazy. Simply crazy! You understand, don’t you?”

Mr. Korpal smiled and nodded.

“I understand.” He turned to Fareeha, busy eating uncouthly once more like her alias demanded. “The offer still stands anyways for you to get an upgrade on your leg prosthetics, if you want.”

Fareeha grunted and then shoved another bit of food in her mouth.

“That’s a no.” Mccree provided rather unhelpfully. It was clear that it was a no from the get-go.

Still, Mr. Korpal kept smiling that Stepford wife of a smile he had, acting like his mood was completely undeterred by Fareeha’s frigid response.

\------------------------

“-and that’s how that old mare won the races! Can you believe it? My pops was so angry, I swear to this day that smoke had actually came out of his ears.” Mccree laughed raucously, signaling the end of his story. His shoulders bounced as he finished yet another on-the-fly lie about his supposed childhood. The Vishkar personnel laughed with him, his smile infectious even under a smarmy disguise. “It was a shame I didn’t buy Daybreak Delilah Derby sooner. I had a chance to y’know? Before she started to perform. Wouldn’t have cost me a fraction of what I did pay to get my hands on her if I had just rolled with my gut.”

“Wow. That is a story.” Mr. Korpal remarked as his small laugh tapered off. “Say, Mr. Jacobs, how many horses do you own? Just wondering.”

“How many horses?” Mccree repeated unimpressed, mustache twitching from the offended jut of his lips. “I own whole _stables_ , not a few stallion and mares here and there. All of which are winning thoroughbreds. The best of the best…” He winked and twirled his mustache – with the hand that doesn’t have the watch strapped on it. “And nothing less.”

Mr. Korpal raised his hands in apology.

“Of course you do, what on earth was I thinking? A rich man such as yourself from that area of America. It would be outlandish for you to not have a stable. Foolish of me to think otherwise.” He chuckled out, not disparagingly. He ate a spoonful of his mash potatoes. “The south seems so different from north America. I’ve only been to upstate New York and occasionally Oregan, primarily for meetings and conventions. Races there seem nowhere near as exciting.”

“So you have never been to the south, Sanjay?” Mccree mused aloud, waving his fork around in the air as he spoke. The register of his baritone deep and rumbling. “You should visit at least once. The view is nice and the food is simply fantastic.” Mccree gestured down at the half-finished lobster on his place. “As good as the stuff you’re serving us right now. This is wonderful, by the way.” He tacked on at the end.

Mr. Korpal tipped his head graciously.

“I am glad it is up to par, we had spared no expense.” Mr. Korpal said with a practiced smile. “And I will certainly give your compliments to the chef. I am sure he will be most happy that a man such as yourself finds his food more than sufficient.”

Mccree’s grinned, the one golden molar implant Winston’s team had installed shining and sparkling as it caught the artificial light from beneath the shade of his handlebar mustache. His chest puffed up and out, like he was preening from the compliment.

And if Angela had met Mccree today, she would have believed he was.

The man was a wonderful actor.

So wonderful in fact, that she had to wonder just the number of Mccree has used his skills to get in or out of trouble. Undoubtedly his manners and charisma made him the perfect person to scout areas before a hit when he was in Deadlock and for reconnaissance during his time in Blackwatch. Like a chameleon she had seen the way he could change for missions before, and the natural way people would relax around him and his southern charm.

“If you don’t mind, would you tell me more about Kentucky?” Mr. Korpal asked with a curious smile on his face, leaning forward in his seat. Mccree’s eyes crinkled from the question, mouth busy chewing on another piece of lobster to smile back properly. “If I get a chance to visit, I would like to know what is important to see and do.”

Mccree nodded as he swallowed.

“A moment.” He said as he dabbed his mouth with the napkin he tucked into the collar of his shirt.

Mr. Korpal nodded, folding his hands together. Food forgotten, utensils at the four o’clock position. That professional smile plastered wide on his face. It was then that Angela realized that his question had less to do with finding things out for himself to there, than to find out what the man he believed to be Walter C. Jacobs found relevant and important. It seemed that they weren't the only ones trying to pick apart a person.

“Of course, Mr. Jacobs.”

Mccree took his time, after he finished wiping his mouth he carefully smoothed his mustache back into shape with a twirl of his fingers and took a generous sip of his wine. His second glass of the day. After he settled the wine back onto the table, his hand slid down the stem of the wine and onto the table as well, where he tapped at the cloth that covered the wood with his fingers twice. He cleared his throat. He tapped at the table twice more.

Sir Walter C. Jacobs. Ever moving at his own pace.

“Well now, Sanjay." He said without any particular inflection as he began. He wet his lips. "That’s a loaded question.” Mccree leaned forward, mimicking Sanjay’s stance. “You have any specific thing in mind? People usually have all sorts of ideas of the south. Sometimes good.” Mccree said with a chuckle and a warm smile, before it dropped. Replaced by something dark in his eyes, his lips disappearing under his large mustache as it pressed into a flat line. “… Sometimes bad. Nothing bad, right?”

If Mr. Korpal was flustered by the sudden change in mood, he did an excellent job of not showing it.

That perfect smile continued to rest on his face.

“No. Nothing bad.” He scratched his cheek twice and looked at the side as if sheepish. To Angela, there was something utterly calculated about the move. His eyes shifted for a moment to her (she shivered, he acted as if he had read her thoughts) before shifting back onto Mccree. Angela hoped the smile on her face didn’t look off or had fallen off when he suddenly reigned in on her. “River boating, maybe? The south is famous for that, isn’t it?”

“River boating? Kentucky is the _best_ at that.” Mccree boasted, smile coming back full-force. The manic and eccentric quality of his alias perfectly captured with the sudden ups and lows of his mood. It was probably terrifying for them to witness, especially from a potential investor of great importance that they couldn’t write off dismissively. “The Kentucky River is unparalleled. A beautiful sight with plenty of succulent fish swimming in its fresh waters. You’ll be sure to leave with a smile on your face after a day on top of the calm ripples, I can attest to that.”

And as Mccree continued to speak, Angela marveled at the way Mccree continued on with little tidbits and stories. The opinions he pieced together for the Vishkar employees before them about himself. Leading them gently by the hand to form the sort of feeling about him that he wanted by subtleties and technicalities in his stories. Things that people would pick up upon and naturally utilize to form an outlook on an individual.

It was a difficult thing to do properly.

It was genius.

“Dr. Mueller.” Ms. Aggarwal called out and Angela peeled her eyes off Mccree, a suitable look of interest crossing her features as she gave her full attention to the young lady in front of her. “You said you worked in GSM before? I’m sure it was a very fruitful endeavor for you.”

Angela’s eyes crinkled.

“It was indeed.” She agreed whole-heartedly as she moved once more to cut another piece of the lobster set in front of her. She worked on it methodically as she thought for a moment, sifting through her memories for a moment to share. “It was difficult work as well, but rewarding. I will never forget the smile a young girl gave me after I stitched up her mother.”

“It must have been a sight to see.”

“Blinding.” Angela said softly, a breathless quality in her voice for it was the truth. “There is no better sight.”

A full-bodied smile displayed itself on Ms. Aggarwal’s lips at her well-delivered statement, reaching her eyes and making her features shine. She sighed romantically and set down her fork and knife, lobster still only half-eaten, and rested her head on a hand.

“Kids are a gift to the world,” she said dreamily and the crows’ feet around her eyes deepened, “I have two of my own and seeing them happy gives me a greater joy than anything else. Two sons, and my oldest one just turned eight – very smart. Won a school-wide competition just last month.”

“Well, congratulations to him. May he continue to go through life excelling as he already is.” Angela announced as she picked up her wineglass by the stem, lifting it up to clink a small toast in the name of her son. She sipped at the wine before setting it down, newly minted with another lipstick stain on the rim. “And your other? How old is he? What does he do?”

Ms. Aggarwal smiled.

“Interested, are we?” She teased kindly. “You want to have kids of your own one day, Dr. Mueller?”

Not particularly.

No.

She shrugged and dawdled, trying to remember if Veronica Mueller was the child-loving sort.

She couldn’t remember.

“I think I’m rather old to start thinking about it.” She compromised, that factoid somehow still slipping her mind.

This answer would suffice well enough, she reasoned.

She repressed a breath of relief when Ms. Aggarwal appeared to take her answer.

“Nonsense. You’re only in your what? Early forties right?”

She was thirty nine this year, not far off, and comments like these shouldn’t bother her in the grand scheme of things. She was a capable woman who has more than a dozen awards and accolades for her work in the medicinal field. Plenty to be proud of. Yet despite all that, Angela could not help the small twinge in her at being seen as a few years older than she was.

“Pretty much. Yeah.” She mumbled, adjusting her Bluetooth speaker to calm herself, pressing the plastic into her ear. “Early forties…”

“See? It’s not too bad, I know plenty of people who have children later on in life.”

She nodded and shrugged.

“I guess…”

“Is that why you dropped out of GSM to work for Mr. Jacobs?” Ms. Aggarwal enquired with a cock of her head. “Settling down and staying in one place is a good place to start if you’re thinking about having kids. Kids need stability.”

“…Um.” Angela palmed at the napkin on her lap, smoothing the edges. Angela was glad that she only had to answer these questions as Veronica. This was the line of questioning that she never wanted to deal with. Ever. People often had a visceral reaction of horror whenever they found out she had no interest in having children of her own. “I didn’t think that far. GSM is, like I said, rewarding work. However, the travel and the demanding pace of life was starting to become too much for me.”

“Well maybe that means you have reached that point in life where it is time for you to settle down.” Ms. Aggarwal pressed and Angela internally laughed at the irony. If anything, she was working more now than she had ever before. Overwatch still had much work to do. “It’s never too late to find a good man nor to have kids of your own. Especially kids. They are a dream.”

“… I suppose I should think about it.” Angela acquiesced, knowing better than to ever refute a parent singing about the wonders of parenthood.

She felt the Bluetooth speaker in her ear crackle to life.

_Hey, waiter boy._

She glanced at Mccree, beside her, back to her as he leaned in the direction of the one waiter in this private room. He twirled his mustache with his left fingers as he spoke, and the proximity of the watch to his molar implant of a communication link activated his mic. His hissed words railed on her eardrums.

_Pour me another glass of wine. But under the table._

“…Though when it comes to kids, Ms. Aggarwal.” Angela pulled at Mccree’s shoulder, bringing his attention back to her. A lowered down, shoddily attempted to be concealed wine glass in the palms of his hands clear for her to see. She stared at it flatly. “This one makes me think that perhaps it’s not such a great idea.”

She silently demanded for the glass with gesture of her hand, palm up and Mccree gave it to her sourly.

“How did you know?”

 _Thank you_.

She stared back at him.

“Women’s intuition.”

_Anytime._

(None of them could very well get drunk on this mission, as much as Walter C. Jacobs enjoyed doing so)

(Thank goodness for the commlinks)

Mccree groaned as he sat correctly once more in his seat. Angela gave a sharp look at the waiter, who blanched and scurried off without trying to pour one drop of wine into his glass. From the looks of it, he would not dare to try again.

Fareeha’s face was schooled throughout the exchange, save for a small twitch of her lip.

And Angela knew that Fareeha was laughing on the inside.

“Veronica, darling,” Mccree said dramatically and she stared at the man that was acting as her boss. “You are so beautiful, but by god you are a stubborn thing. Makes me rethink if it’s really worth it to keep you around.”

“Mr. Jacobs, it is not up to you to decide whether I stay or go. That is up to your father. Besides, you know you cannot drink too much wine.” Angela placed the wine glass next to hers on the far end of the table. She pretended to seem thoroughly ruffled. “It is bad enough that your father allows you to drink any wine at all, considering the medications you take.”

Mccree grumbled and crossed his arms.

He stared at Sanjay and gave a secretive shake of the head, all-the-while mouthing ‘women’ to him. Sanjay chuckled and shrugged non-committedly at the sexist jibe, lifting his hands into the air with his palms up as if to say ‘Well. What can you do?’

Angela did not need to pretend.

The thinning of her lips and the ire she felt in her gut at the exchange was completely real.

“Speaking of which,” She said clinically, not all the frost in her tone an act. “Have you taken your medication yet?”

“No, but we still have dessert now don’t we, darling?”

She let out a withering sounding sigh.

“Then after dessert.”

After dessert she would give him his so-called medicine for his so-called ailments. In truth, they were pills designed to break alcohol at an accelerant speed along with banish the drunken state of mind, though prolonged use of the pills would damage the liver. It proved to be useful in times of emergencies however, and in this particular situation that she had never dreamed of as a possibility. Never thought she would be part of.

Life was funny that way.

\------------------------

Mccree banged his fist on the table and the table shook. He was on a tangent, waving a finger in the air as he spoke of his woes with dealing with tight governments and how they got in the way of his businesses. To the untrained eye, they would deduce that the alcohol had finally sunk in and Mccree had become a slightly drunken mess. His nostrils were flaring and his eyes were sharp as he spoke with heated vitriol.

“My guns, my laws, my goddamn freedom. They take our tax money and benefit from our contributions and then what? They turn around and meddle into our affairs.” He shook his head as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his tin of watermint dinner mints. “Less government is good, I say. Wouldn’t you agree? Aren’t they the reason why y’all made your base here, an hour and a half drive away, instead of in the prime location in Oasis? I know Vishkar could’ve easily afforded to be in that district.”

Mccree popped a dinner mint into his mouth.

He raised his brow, lips smacking as he chewed on the mint.

“What? Am I wrong? Say something.”

“… It would be nice for governments to be a little less stringent, I agree.” Mr. Korpal conceded carefully, “However, it is what it is, and we shall move past it.” Mccree scoffed and offered him and his people his tin of mints. Mr. Korpal took one out of obligation, most likely to appease the ticked off man before him, and chewed on it. His face scrunched spectacularly at the first bite, the first bit of genuine unrehearsed emotion that Angela believes crossed his features this lunch. “Is that mint and…” He cringed again. “And watermelon?”

“It is. Watermint dinner mints manufactured by the Good Charles Corporation.” Mccree recited perfectly. “Watermelon and mint flavored and a favorite of mine since I was a young boy. It also helps me sober up.”

Mr. Korpal nodded in understanding and continued to chew, swallowing the soft mint with a face of a man who had an upset stomach.

“Anyways, thank you for this meal. It was fantastic.” Mccree praised as he leaned back, creasing the side of the cowboy hat that hung precariously on one corner of the top rail of his chair. Not showing a smidgen of concern for Mr. Korpal. Mccree grinned wide and smacked his stomach twice with both hands before grabbing and shaking at the fat lightly. “I’m going to leave the premises a heavier man – in the physical sense I mean.”

Mr. Korpal let out a polite laugh at the small joke and silly demonstration. His mouth curved into a refreshing smile as he leaned forward on crossed arms, an eyebrow quirked just the slightest. Not a hint of the disgust he had felt seconds earlier from swallowing a watermelon and mint flavored dinner mint anywhere on his clean-shaven face.

“ _Only_ in the physical sense, Mr. Jacobs?”

His tone was even and practiced. That ever-lasting smile still played on his lips, and it broadened slowly in such a picturesque manner that it felt all sorts of disingenuous to her. Mccree took this time to swallow the sobering pills she had laid in a small saucer next to his plate of chocolate cake.

Full stomachs aside and fine wine aside, they were on the job right now.

And despite Mr. Jacobs’ fervent belief in the watermint dinner mints and its sobering properties…

It simply wasn’t true.

“Does that mean you’ll be…” Mr. Korpal wet his lips. “… A ‘lighter man’ in another sense, so to speak?”

Mccree cocked his head and smirked.

“Yes… for the right price of course. So go on, I think we’ve gotten to know each other well enough already. Let’s get to business.” Mccree pulled off the napkin and threw it on top of his plate, not breaking eye-contact with Mr. Korpal the whole time. “Y’all already had that conversation with those superiors of yours, did you not? And they approved of letting me at least a little in on the good stuff. Convince me of the worth of these secret projects and I’ll write a check larger than your wildest dreams.”

And the smile on Mr. Korpal’s face transformed.

“I’ll do my best.”

It looked razor sharp.

They both stood up to walk to one side of the room to have a more personal conversation, leaving her and Fareeha with the assistants. And Angela did not miss the way Mccree adjusted his watch and flicked on the recorder as he walked by her, fixing that cowboy hat back on his head, ready to work his charm and get some real information.

\------------------------

Once Mccree was done with whatever discussion he had with Mr. Korpal, they were off once more to look at more areas in the facility. She held a machine in her hands as they walked, disguised as a standard practice pocket-sized machine that checked the air quality of a room. In the event there were any particular fumes that would agitate Mr. Jacobs and his weakened health state. The truth was that though it did scan for air quality and any traces of radiation, it also scanned the area of a room, its dimensions and the large fixtures in each room. Cataloguing a detailed map of the area. Tracking the areas they had been, the location of the security cameras and marking the rooms they bypassed without touching or inspecting.

She wasn’t sure how, but Winston said that this might end up to be crucial information to gather, and she trusted that ape to know what he was talking about.

“And where does this room go?” She asked as they passed yet another door. “No dangerous fumes coming out of this room right? Soldering or something like that? Particles that are dangerous for Mr. Jacobs?”

Ms. Aggarwal shook her head.

“Oh that? No, don’t worry. That’s nothing.”

“Okay, but what is it exactly? I can’t have him be exposed to anything that might jeopardize his health further.” She bumbled as she walked. “Anything that he himself doesn’t want to be jeopardized from anyways. His cigar habit is atrocious and he simply won’t listen to me at all to quit.”

Ms. Aggarwal laughed and nodded.

But did not answer.

Angela furrowed her brows and realizing that Ms. Aggarwal’s attention had become diverted by the beckoning of Mccree, walked a few paces back discretely. She stared at the door, taking in the double lock and the lack of signage for what lied beyond and snapped a photo with the camera in her lenses. When she turned her head back forwards, intent to catch up with the crew, she almost jumped out of her skin as she was face to face with Mr. Korpal.

“Mr. Korpal!” She leaned to look over his shoulder and saw that Mccree was busy speaking to both Ms. Aggarwal and Mr. Yudav. Fareeha was beside them taking notes in her trusty little notepad. They were standing by the window into one of the research rooms.

“Are you alright, Dr. Mueller?” He asked in a chillingly even tone. His eyes flickered to the door that had held her attention. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh nothing.” She adjusted her glasses, eyes flickering down for a moment to break away from the strange gaze. “I was just rather curious about that room.”

“…Why?”

She shrugged and bit her lip. Many things, but all of which were observations far too astute for her alias to have noticed. She was a doctor, not a trained agent after all.

“Just curious.” Angela purposely squirmed in place, looking all the right kinds of flustered that her alias would be. With her hands she signed subtly a discrete hand signal that ‘everything was fine’ to Fareeha when she noticed the woman had started to pick up on the strange atmosphere surrounding her and Mr. Korpal. “We passed it without making any mention of it and so I just... was curious…”

He stared at her for a long minute, as if dissecting her reason.

“…It just goes downstairs to a storage area.”

“Oh.” She smiled lopsidedly, perking up deliberately. “And what does it store?”

He gave her a glassy eyed smile at that. Unnerving and unnatural and Angela need not feign nervousness any longer. She gulped and shrunk in her spot once more, tightening her grip on her devices.

“You ask a lot of questions…”

“Like I said to um, Ms. Aggarwal.” She said meekly, not quite a lie considering Mr. Korpal’s look right now at her seemed downright chilling. His face had turned blank and the lack of expression sent her stomach roiling. “I need to know for my boss.”

He doesn’t move for a second. And then he broke. He smiled. A smile that crinkled his eyes and pulled at his cheeks, but somehow felt completely and utterly insincere. It was not a comforting smile in the least. He gestured her to walk with him, keeping her a little bit in front of him. She had no choice but to control her facial features and seem oblivious to the screaming of her instincts.

“It is simply scraps from failures. That is the reason for my hesitance to explain.” He explained with a heavy sigh. “I promise you, nothing but scrap metal down there.”

And Angela does not believe his bold-faced lie at all.

\------------------------------

The rest of the tour, Angela made sure not to draw attention to herself.

She clicked on her commlink and video feed and ensured to not press anyone for answers about anything that Mr. Korpal conveniently left out of his explanations. Instead she snapped photos and catalogued the areas that raised red flags in her mind with the recorder in her spectacles. Her newly acquired habit of not speaking so much seemed to satisfy Mr. Korpal and as time went along, the strange and intense gazes he directed at her became less and less frequent.

At the end of the tour, he smiled at her genuinely, with a dash of the arrogance of a lion peering down at a young and injured gazelle. Angela would have been offended if she wasn’t glad that he no longer found anything to be amiss with her.

It was good for him to think of her this way.

To find her to be meek and weak-minded and to underestimate her whole-heartedly. It would make things easier for her to operate on the second day, where they would really get to working. Today after all, had been nothing but simple reconnaissance, solidifying their character personas for Vishkar and gaining their trust to gain access to the real reason they were doing all this in the first place.

\------------------------------

“You know Angela, _darling_.” Mccree drawled, annoying her with the pet name Mr. Jacobs so lovingly liked to call her by. He dodges a smack to his head with a turn of his body. “You almost got done in today. I saw how Sanjay got a little spooked by you at some point.”

She huffed.

She knew that.

“Mccree. Shut up.”

He laughed and rolled in his seat.

“I’m going to get some shut-eye now.” He announced like she had asked, pulling down his hat over his face. “I know Winston will want a full run-down when we get back to base and I need to gather my strength for it.” He got comfortable in his seat. “I have a feeling it will be a long one – cuz that information I got in those private talks.” He whistled lowly. “It is a _lot_. A lot of information to filter through… I’m sure it’s the same for you.”

It was.

The smart thing to do was to do just the same and close her eyes.

“Night, Angela.”

Her brain agreed.

“Goodnight, Mccree.”

Her heart on the other hand-

She stared at the front of the car, where Fareeha sat, driving them back to base.

-Did not.

She kicked off her heels and moved to the front of the car, holding the back head-rests of the driver seat and shotgun for balance as she hobbled her way over the middle to sit in the front seat. Fareeha took her eyes off the road to stare at her inquiringly, a smile on her face. She smiled back and leaned over to press a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

“Hi, schatzeli.” She cooed. Fareeha’s smile broadened. Hers did as well stupidly. “I love it when you smile.”

She was robbed of any of Fareeha’s smiles today, once they entered the building and had to be fully in character. Al-Jassim was not a smiler. At all. And that was a damn shame, considering how dashing Fareeha stood with her formal attire. A serious, sharp-eyed Fareeha was a sight for sore eyes and she appreciated the power that radiated through her being, but she was most enamoured with Fareeha's smiles. They would always start as little things and slowly widen and broaden, and Angela always felt struck by the sweetness of it. It's impact increased double fold by the smoldering intensity of her dark eyes.

“I really missed you today.”

Fareeha furrowed her brows and drummed on the pliant leather of the wheel.

“Missed me? I was there the whole time.”

“That is true. However, I could barely speak to you throughout the whole trip.” She mumbled out then cocked her head at her. “You didn’t miss me?”

“No-”

She cut her off, quirking her brow.

“No? _No_?”

Fareeha exhaled softly at the jest and shook her head.

“You didn’t let me finish, ya amar.” She said tartly, though her eyes shined with mirth. She maintained the grim expression only for a second or two before her features descended back into a beautiful smile. “No, I suppose I did. There were plenty of times that I wanted to kiss you. If only I could.”

“Then prove it.”

Fareeha blinked and her eyes flickered up for a moment as she considered her words.

She then nodded.

“Alright. I can kiss you right now, can't I?” She said softly and leaned over to capture Angela in a kiss. A sweet and innocent press of the lips that lasted for only a second or two. Angela’s lips buzzed none-the-less as Fareeha pulled away, readjusting her lopsided glasses, tilted as it bumped her own spectacles. “Satisfied?”

Yes.

“No.” She said however.

Fareeha’s eyebrows raised. She then stared at the road with calculating eyes. Angela looked forwards as well. Nothing but a stretch a sand for at least another good five to six miles. They shared a look, smiling in time with each other.

And snuck another kiss.

\------------------------------

They got in trouble at the two mile mark for their actions.

Angela had decided to get adventurous and suck on Fareeha’s neck in that particular spot she was sensitive in. The reaction was instantaneous. The careful grip on the wheel Fareeha slipped and she turned the wheel roughly with a quick and accidental downward thrust as she tried to find it once more. The car went swerving left, almost travelling at a forty five degree diagonal as it moves off the road to race along a sand dune.

The sudden shift in balance caused Mccree to be thrown from one side of the car to the other, hitting his face straight on the window of the door. He woke up decidedly irate with a bruised red nose.

He yelled at them, rightly so.

When he was done and had fallen asleep, Angela covered her face with her hands, wholly embarrassed by the whole ordeal. She never thought she would see the day where Mccree would be the one reprimanding her for unprofessional behavior on the field.

“Do you regret it?”

She peeked through her fingers. There was a slight worry in Fareeha’s eyes.

Angela let her hands fall down and reached over to place her hand over the hand Fareeha had on the stick shift. She squeezed them encouragingly and grinned as she honed in on the hickey on Fareeha’s neck.

It was another mark that she would have to hide with cover-up makeup.

Mccree would surely never let this incident go and tease her for months about it.

But did she regret it?

“Not at all.”

A rare pompous smile crossed Fareeha’s lips as she nodded at her answer.

“Me neither.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may thinking “ Bonbon, you was gone for so long and you did this?? Fareeha was fucking there too and you didn’t let pharmercy interact until at the end?? Is it gon be like this the rest of the spy arc??? DD: ” And the answer is no. They gon interact. Next chapter is heavy with PM goodness. I promise.
> 
> And even more good news, the next installment ain’t gonna take so long. It took a long time this time because I was alternating between this and my raptoramaker friendship fic “Meet you Maker” (Pls check it out. I am proud of it), but that’s done now so I can focus all my energy here. :D
> 
> Next chapter up this upcoming weekend (MONDAY LATEST).
> 
> Happy halloween witches!!


	6. Sleepy Head

The concept of day and night vanishes in rooms with no windows. A certain sort of staleness enters, like the air is not filtered and left to ferment in hanging stasis, a pervasive feeling that stays even when she knows it not to be true. When she knows that the filtration system is working just fine. The unchanging wattage of the perfect lights above, bright, fluorescent, white, makes time seem insignificant. Whether dusk or dawn they stayed shining at a constant intensity. Bright and unflickering, only serving to hurt Fareeha’s eyes and doing nothing to stop her from nodding off.

It was torture.

The drop of her head, the quick snap of her neck as she caught herself. The millisecond of confusion that clouts her after, before the punch back into reality as she looked around, like being doused in cold water, a shock to her system.

She wasn’t in bed, she was in a meeting.

_Focus, Fareeha. Focus._

She blinked off again. Snapped awake. Rinse and repeat. Her neck ached from yet another sudden freefall drop and instinctual snap back up. Her lips pulled down in displeasure, she crossed her arms further, forearms digging into her ribs. The gaps between slipping was shortening at an ever-quickening pace and she felt powerless to stop it.

The self-induced whiplash was not proving to be a fruitful method to keep her awake.

She was tired. So very tired.

Fareeha sank into her seat unceremoniously, ignoring the fleeting shout in her head that her back would suffer from the ill-posture and released a tired breath, guttural and truthful and straight from the stomach. She uncrossed one folded arm to examine the watch around her wrist. Drooping eyes slanted further as she registered the late hour. They had been in here for almost two hours and frankly (her eyes flickered up, she focused on the board and the agenda sloppily written on one corner) the end seemed nowhere in sight.

Only three out of the five things listed crossed out.

She grumbled under her breath, nonsensical vocalizations that probably stemmed from real Arabic words. Probably. But even to herself, it sounded like utter gibberish - she wasn’t sure what she had been trying to say in the first place. The only thing she was sure of was the wash of ire over each syllable. She hooked a finger on her necktie and pulled, loosening its grasp around her collar, relieving the tension around her neck.

A small reprieve.

So much. There was so much _talking_ today.

And it had yet to stop. Since seven in the morning until now, an hour before midnight.

The whole day.

Unending, unmitigated, unstopped _interaction_.

Yudav would not leave her alone and keeping up a farce of an identity had drained her more than any fight or battle had in recent memory. For somebody who flew high in the skies in polished armor and a main mode of operandus on the battlefield being screeching fire rockets, Fareeha was not a woman who loved glory and all the attention that came with it. She liked to rest after a long day.

Preferably alone in the quiet.

To silently soak in the satisfaction of doing a good job and helping out in the privacy of her own heart.

(Though a tasteful compliment or two was never not appreciated)

Which is why she felt foul, skin tight, temple throbbing, roiling in agitated energy by the time lunch had hit from all the chit-chat and small talk and sugar-coated pleasantries. Not a moment alone.

At the end of the day, the temperamental ire she displayed to Mr. Korpal and his assistants wasn’t a display at all.

She was done by then – had it, so to speak. Her lips curling in genuine dissatisfaction, legs eager to bolt her away from the pristine walls of the Vishkar halls without a single goodbye. Fantasizing about the relative solace of their ride (wholly willing to shove a guard or two out of the way to get back to the car faster). She was only half-listening to the pleasantries Mccree and Angela exchanged in final farewell, unapologetically boring holes into the exit doors. Staring straight through the glass, at the parked car beyond.

She groaned. She had two more days of this to suffer through.

The car ride back was a saving grace. A nice reprieve that settled her back into a good enough mood to partake in this important meeting, where further discussion and talking would occur (and was currently occurring). The rumbling of a well-oiled engine, the sliding of the wheels’ axis on the smooth tarmac and Angela’s daring kisses to her neck and lips and the spaces between all very helpful distractions to dispel her festering irritation.

Especially that last thing.

Angela was probably an exception. The only exception in her books.

The only person that she could spend a whole day with, and be left feeling renewed.

Fareeha removed her spectacles and pocketed the item into her breast pocket flippantly, rumpling the handkerchief that already rested within. She crossed her arms once more and slid down further in the rolling chair. Down and down and then a little to the side, until her head rested on Angela’s shoulder. Angela, who conveniently sat beside her. Angela, who somehow always found a way to smell a little bit like a medical ward.

And feel like home.

Angela does not react to the sudden weight of her head, not in the way she assumed she would at least. With whispered teasing of her inability to stay awake at late hours and perhaps a curious smile directed her way, the corners filled with soft and open affection. Instead, Angela kept her attention levelled on the discussion before them, scratching at the off-white paper of her notebook with a gel pen, taking dutiful notes in beautiful penmanship – an art she honed to refreshingly shatter the notion that all doctors have poor writing.

The only indication that she noticed Fareeha at all was a quick tilt of her head to press a gentle yet firm kiss onto the top of her head. Then it was back, full attention on the board before them and none on her. It was a brief thing. The regard, the contact, the feel of her lips - muted further by landing on her thick hair than the surfaces of her skin.

But it was enough.

More than enough.

Fareeha quelled a smile, finding that this was not the time to appear goofily happy and shifted further, digging into the plush shoulder pads of Angela’s suit as she too, stared ahead, trying to focus on the meeting taking place. Tried not to think about how Angela did not dissuade her from resting on the shoulder of her dominant hand, making writing just a twinge more difficult of a task to do. How instead Angela leaned towards her just so, accommodating her further, allowing her head to rest more comfortably.

Despite how the new angle made writing only that much more tasking.

Fareeha tried not to think about it.

Tried to focus on the conversation in front of her. Like a good agent would.

Winston was standing alongside Mccree, their fingers pointing at the crude drawings scrawled all over the whiteboard. Their mouths open as they spoke to each other and everyone else in the room.

At Lucio, who freed up his schedule to watch them see this espionage mission through, personal vendetta against the corporate entity keeping him vigilantly awake as he grappled every statement leaving anybody’s lips about the situation at current with Vishkar. Cheery eyes darkening like storms building on a sunny day as the conversation ventured into the grayer areas.

To the private talks between Mccree and Mr. Korpal, about a few technological advancements coming underway. Advancements that had less to do with architecture and more of a different kind.

At Lena, four chairs away from her, dressed in a limited edition Lucio shirt and matching pair of sleeping shorts from his latest concert. Less interested in the subjects touched now that it was delving more into semantics. Slumped over on the table, the side of her cheek smushed on the table as her finger pushed and rolled a stray gel pen near her, mumbling back responses when called for. Head lifting only momentarily when they spoke that tomorrow there would be some sort of surprise demonstration.

(Fareeha as bleary as she was, catalogued that in her mind as well)

And at Mei.

Mei was here as well.

The woman apparently arriving late afternoon all the way from the Gibraltar base all alone with nobody but the pilot and the co-pilot to keep her company through the journey.

It was strange, the thought blossoms in Fareeha’s mind, for Mei to be here.

Peculiar for a climatologist with a focus on cold weather to travel to this region. The decidedly hot and barren deserts of Iraq, unsalvageable climates since eons before. There was nothing to protect here, in the environmental sense. Perhaps it is Oasis however that called her. That would make more sense.

…So why was she attending this meeting again?

Fareeha’s eyelids sagged and threatened to overpower her will with the sweet temptation of a cheating rest, to shut her eyes for a couple seconds in lieu of proper sleep, as if that will satiate her desire to slip under the sheets of a bed. The suggestion was enticing to her weary soul and if Fareeha were a weaker sort, she would have keeled and surrendered immediately to her silent wish.

She knows better though; how dangerous it would be.

To follow through with that desire.

It carried a dangerous potency to go too far. A couple moments rest would and could easily transform into a direct descent into slumber and the quiet abode of dreams. She would be gone and she would not come back, not even after being shaken awake, the clutches of the sandman already hooked into her like the talons of a predator.

She already felt a stretching divide between her and the room.

A feeling that nothing was real.

Fareeha covered her mouth with a hand as she tried to stifle a yawn, then crossed them tighter against her chest. She removed herself from Angela’s shoulder and pressed her back to the chair, chin up, a power stance. As wonderful as Angela’s shoulder was, it also had a tranquilizing effect on her. She should not allow her head to lay to rest. Nor the rest of her body.

Worse comes to worse, she would stand for the rest of the meeting.

An idea that seemed to becoming the best option quickly.

The slow honey drawl of Mccree and the deep rumbles that stained Winston’s words were as soothing as a lullaby, she found. Her eyes were rapidly drooping. She groaned and rubbed at her face with the flat of her palms, breathing deeply as she repeated in her head that it was key to not only stay awake, but to also register the words that were being said. She dropped her hands and settled them on top of the table, folding them together, ready to listen.

For real.

She furrowed her brows.

Everyone was staring at her, with smiles and poorly held back laughter.

 “…What?” She croaked out lowly. No answer. They continue staring. Lena is pulling out her phone. The confusion doubled. “Is there something on my face?”

“Uh, technically there’s something that’s gone _off_ your face.” Winston commented as he capped the marker in his hands, grinning with bemusement. He gestured at his face with his hand. “Your uh… make-up, I believe? It’s gone away in parts and-”

A flash. She scrunched her eyes and shook her head, attempting to ward off the bright spot in her eye. She went to wipe at her face again, to rub at her eyes, then halted as a chuckle came out in time with the beginnings of her swipe. She dropped her hand and blinked and blinked. When her eyes finally refocused, she sees a phone in front of her, held by a cheery Lena, suddenly bounding with energy once more.

There on the display, is a selfie of her and Lena. Angela too, in the background, good-natured close-lipped demure smile and a teasing twiddle of the fingers of her raised hand. It was a pretty sight.

But her eyes are glued to the image of herself.

Her face was a streaked mess. Her foundation like lines on her face, udjat peeking through the marks and the edges of her eyelines smudging into a poorly created smoky eye. She looked, like she had went through a terrible breakup seconds before the picture was snapped. The half-opened, bleary look of her eyes was not helping.

Heat flushed up from her neck, warming her face and the tip of her ears.

She reached out to take the phone, to inspect the picture up close, hand moving with a mortified tremble when she turns her palm, distracted by the strange two-tone that coats the underside of her finger tips. Her mouth thins to hide any further tells of the growing embarrassment that was building within her. Her ears do not get the memo and blush harder.

Her hand was caked in make-up residue, stained like a childs after hand-painting.

She checked her other hand.

Equally as dirty.

Great. Just _peachy_.

Another snap.

Oh no.

Lena shows her the new photo. She is staring dumbly at her hands with furrowed brows and hazy eyes. It is not a good look.

"If I could post this, just know I would've captioned this 'woman realizes she has hands. #dopey' ."

Well Lena was about to learn about them too. She was about to catch these hands if she didn't stop.

Her stomach wounds up and her teeth bares as she spots Mccree and Lucio start joining in on the fun as well, whipping out their phones, attempting to take a sordid picture of her embarrassing state as well. She stood, the chair she sat on rolling off to the side as she evaded the snaps of her newfound paparazzi. She raised her arms and made grabs for their phones.

“Enough.” She groused, hands waving in front of her, lashing out somewhat from embarrassment.

She leant back to avoid another snap and quickly pulled left to blur herself as Jesse almost caught her off-guard. She darted and whipped her hands towards their phones, plucking it out their hands with the speed of a snake strike. She waved the phones meaningfully in front of her as she walked a few paces back. Far enough to stay out of their grubby reach.

They whined.

“Aw c’mon, Fareeha. You rejected me enough when you were protecting me all those years ago.” Lucio held his hand up, forefinger and thumb almost touching as he stared at her with big eyes. “Just one itty bitty picture?”

Mccree placed his hands on his hips.

“Sunshine, Lena gets to take two pictures and I don't?” He questioned dead seriously (she huffs, she didn't give Lena permission. She had just done it). Mccree's voice cracks dramatically. “Don’t you love me?”

Unbelievable. Guilt-tripping?

Such methods won't work on her.

“No.”

Mccree looked as insulted as the day she had made fun of his BAMF belt buckle. Lena is laughing.

“Don't give me that face. I said no.” She repeated darkly, doing her best to not raise her voice, keeping their phones hostage in her hands and well out of their reach. “No more photos. We have a meeting to finish anyways. Let’s not get distracted.”

“Hear me out, Fareeha. Just one?” Lucio tried again, reaching for his phone, pumping his brows rapidly like it would help convince her. It didn't. She scowled further and refused to hand the offending item over. He frowned. “It'll just be a tiny one. Like Lena, I promise I won’t upload it to social media. I haven't forgotten Overwatch is supposed to still be defunct.”

Another outright refusal was ready to go blasting out of her when another voice chimed in.

“I think one is alright.” She turned, jaw dropping at the casual air surrounding the statement. Surrounding the betrayal. Angela had swiveled her chair to face them, phone cradled with both hands in front of her face, eyes peeking from the top of her phone cover. “I think it would be a good picture to look back on. Just one?”

There was a smidgen of guilt in the blue of her eyes.

(It is good that she understands well enough that Fareeha is _not_ happy with this turn of events)

Fareeha pursed her lips and worked her jaw.

“…Even you?” She said with an even voice. “Really?”

Angela shrugged and stared back at her through her lashes, a soft smile that bordered on sweet on her lips. The one that Fareeha found hard to resist. Fareeha squinted at the sly woman. Angela, was not playing fair.

But why?

“I just think you look really adorable right now.”

Fareeha crinkled her nose.

“Adorable-”

“Please.” She batted her eyelashes and Fareeha believes she is being played for a fool. “For me?”

Fareeha grumbled and jutted her lips in a sour pout as she felt her resolve crumble from the pure eager reflected through Angela’s whole being. Maybe she was a fool, for the only thing running through her mind was who was she, to deny Angela a favor so small, when it would make her so happy.

“…Alright.” She relented.

And Angela’s smile turned breathless at her surrender.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad-

Lucio and Mccree whooped loudly behind her. She straightened up, smile slipping immediately. She was _not_ doing this for them. She turned on her heel, held up her pointed finger straight in the air and stared at them sharply. They clammed up and listened.

 “It’s only _one_ picture. _One._ ”

_________________

One picture ended up being five.

Fareeha does not exactly remember how that happened (and why she willingly went into a few slightly embarrassing poses) and at this point perhaps it was best not to think about it.

It was over, in any case.

And at least she’s getting a hug from the side for it and the treat of Angela’s adoring eyes and giddy smile craning up to meet her vision. Her chin tickles Fareeha as it digs into the dent in her shoulder. Angela’s arms feel small as they wrap around her torso and crossed arms – though make no mistake, Angela does have muscle definition. Her arms are firm things that can carry more than they seem. But they are slim, and they do not have the same power of any of her former comrades (all strong, Raptora suit-wearing folks as well).

It was also true however, that for all their physical strength, none of them quite had the ability to keep her in place as much as this woman before her.

“Thank you, Fareehali.” She felt a flutter of a kiss on the corner of her jawline and grunted, feigning still being somewhat perturbed by the chain of events. She did not want Mccree to relish in any thought that she would do this again, much less for him somehow. And she also wanted another kiss (which to her delight, she receives). “Now as a reward, how about you go to bed you sleepy girl?”

Fareeha tilted her head at Angela, an eyebrow arched high. The rest of the crew is busy looking over the recently snapped photos, placing filters on them or whatever, to focus on their conversation.

“I can’t. The meeting is not over.”

Angela squeezes her. Her arms feel like cords around her waist.

Ones that she finds she would mind being trapped within for a lifetime.

A teasing grin reaches Angela’s eyes.

“Does it matter? I know you haven’t really been listening for the last half-hour.” The accusation is thrown lovingly to smooth any sharp edges. Nevertheless Fareeha flinches, her visible reaction cementing the validity of her conjecture. Angela releases a quiet giggle and then nuzzles into her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll relay to you all the important details in the car ride tomorrow? So go to sleep. Winston’s alright with it.” She turned her head to face Winston. “Isn’t that right?”

Winston flashed a thumbs up. Fareeha smiled appreciatively (kind, Winston has the kindness many leaders could benefit from learning) and removed herself from Angela’s grasp. Self-conscious, just a little, of hugging her girlfriend in the midst of a full meeting room. Especially now that they have finished sharing the pictures on their phones.

She stared at Angela while scratching the back of her neck, letting her idea sink into her.

Guilt eats at her.

“It’s… It’s alright. I’ll feel bad.” Mei and Lena were still in attendance. “I shouldn’t get a pass.”

Angela huffed good-naturedly.

“It is not a pass. It is being realistic. I know today tuckered you out and tomorrow is more or less the same. Go rest. It’s for the sake of the mission.” Angela paused. “Doctor’s orders.”

Fareeha’s uneasy grin turned lopsided from amusement.

“You’re not my doctor.”

Angela did not miss a beat.

“Girlfriend’s orders, then.”

Fareeha breathed out sharply through her nose, then barked a defeated laugh.

_________________

“Alright, alright. I know when I’ve lost.”

Fareeha breathed out the statement between chuckles. The handsome light half-smile she donned transforming into something more tender once her laughter tapered off. Into a smile steeped with regard, catching Angela’s attention completely as it was unerringly directed towards her. From the outset it was a faint thing, but it was filled with intensity, an intensity that simmered under a blanket of soft-spoken affection.

“Always looking out for me.” She muttered, observing Angela with unrestrained wonder.

Angela felt her heart thud two paces faster. She cannot seem to look away. She waited with bated breath for Fareeha to finish her statement. She thinks she knows how it will go and she cannot wait to hear it.

“What would I do without you?”

It is not what she expected.

(It is better)

Angela bit her bottom lip at the simply said remark, given so easily. She tucked her hair behind her ear and stared at the floor for a second or two, unable to take Fareeha’s affectionate gaze any longer.

It was unfair.

She does not understand how Fareeha can be so charming even with makeup streaks and smudged liner on her cheeks and nose. How Fareeha can claim to not be good with words and yet find a way to always say the right thing in the right tone.

(She wants to hear more)

“I think you’d be just fine, Fareeha.” She articulated in a slow fashion, failing spectacularly at keeping her tickled smile at bay, deeply aware that she was doing a poor job of making any sort of believable pretense of taking the compliment in cool stride. “You spent a good portion of your life without me just fine.”

Fareeha only response was to laugh again. A quiet chuckle filled with disbelief.

“How could I ever go back to being ‘just fine’, now that I have met you? I don’t think anyone could.” Fareeha cupped her cheek and leaned down to kiss her on the temple. “I love you, Angela. Goodnight, habibti. I’m going to do as you say and get some rest.”

Fareeha turned to meet everyone else’s eyes. She gave them a quick wave of her hand.

“And goodnight to the rest of you too.”

They all bid her a goodnight as well, to which Fareeha nodded. And then, within seconds, Fareeha was gone. The doors to the meeting room sliding shut as efficiently as they opened when Fareeha pressed the button to release the automatic lock.

Everyone settled back into their seats after some time (and more than a few ribs at her).

Except Lucio.

“Lucio?” She whispered. “Are you alright?”

He breaks from whatever trance he was in at her inquiry, wide-eyes filled with fascination training on her instead of the gray slate of the sliding doors of the meeting room. He takes a seat. Not in his original place, but in the empty seat beside her.

She cocked her head and delivered an inviting smile.

He shuffled closer, holding a flat palm up near his mouth, like he was about to spill a secret.

“I’ve never seen Fareeha like that.”

He straightened up and made a pensive frown, brows furrowed down low. A flat stare that seemed at odds to how Angela had seen him in the couple days he had been here with them. Passionate, blazing, emotions unabashedly worn on his sleeves. It was strange to see such a face on him, and yet there was something familiar about it.

“She was always like this.” He pointed at his stern expression. “Exactly like this.”

Oh.

So that was why it was so familiar.

Angela smiled.

“I think she’s cute when she looks like that as well.” She defended, meaning every word.

“Uh-huh. From where I'm sitting, it just looks like you got bit by the love-bug a couple more times than most people.”

Angela giggled.

“No. I’m not. It’s a fact. And just Angela is fine.”

Lucio shimmied in his seat and stared at her bug-eyed, exaggerating shock at her response. It is late at night, but Angela feels herself perking up, the good mood of this man rubbing off on her. Good vibes it seems, did never die whenever this man came around.

“Whatever you say, Angela.” He leaned closer and grinned wide as he pumped his brows twice. “Any chance you could make her smile like that for us too?”

“Sorry, but that’s all mine. I’m not sharing that.”

Lucio laughed, his shoulders rocking in time with each breath, not the least bit troubled by her lack of interest in letting everyone else be privy to parts of Fareeha only she has had the joy to see. He probably expected as much (most people would).

“Guess even supposed angels can be a bit selfish.” He smiled out and then winked at her. “No mercy to anyone who tries to vie for her attention?”

The answer bubbled forth without a shred of hesitance.

“None.” And there is a serious edge to her tone that she isn’t surprised to hear.

She meant it.

Before Lucio can respond, Winston clapped his hands, a mini sonic booming cracking from the collision of his large palms, effectively halting their small conversation with its air-travelling quakes. The action also steals everyone else’s attention once more.

“Okay." He said with a grin. "That's enough talking. Let’s continue. Let's get this conversation done before one in the morning.”

Nobody fights him. The meeting resumes and no further interruptions occur.

_________________

Yudav really does not quit.

It was almost commendable. Almost.

She could feel him stare at her back, ready at the guard to come forth if she so beckoned him. Probably waiting for the unwilling motion of a brisk hand from Al-Jassim, signaling a need for aid in clarifying what one of the many tools on display were.

He was waiting for something she was not going to do. She did go to engineering school. Taking off her iron ring did not change that fact (it was stored safely in her room back at base, in the bedside drawer).

She did not help here, rifling through the tech room. At least, not from an assistant whose field of focus was not engineering. His traits centered on the fine art of management and data analytics. Both admirable fields, but useless for her current inspections.

She picked up a rod and rotated the steel beam in her hand. Hefty, grooved in sections.

Ornamented piece.

Made of high grade material.

A lot of things in Vishkar was. She had to give them credit for their dedication towards both form and function – aesthetics not lost in the pursuit of technological improvements and creating cutting edge technology.

Sometimes literally on that latter point.

She strolled over, hands in her pockets, an ambivalent strut to the board hung up with visualizations of a sentry turret the size of a soccer ball. Clean and minimalistic and according to the schematics, rather dangerous despite its small package.

“Ah, if you’re interested in the sentry turrets you won’t believe what is coming up-”

She turned and dead stared Yudav, baring her teeth as she scowled. Slowly, as he continued to smack his lips she lifted up her hand and with a flourish, yanked out her supposed hearing aid. She held it up for Yudav to notice and when he did, she pretended to relish the sadness that entered his eyes and the way his speech trailed off. Quirking the corners of her lips in an almost smile deliberately. An expression that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, replaced once more by her permanent resting scowl.

He shifted uncomfortably, hands folded together as he looked at her with nervously pursed lips.

He made a motion of zipping his lips.

She did not place the hearing aid back on. Instead, she roughly stored it in the back pocket of her pants, continually glaring at him as if it was all his fault that she was such a sourpuss. She then grunted, swiveled on her heel and resumed to look around while ignoring the man completely.

(And ignoring the ache in her heart for being so cold so needlessly)

She worked in relative peace for the next half hour or so, cataloguing items and attempting to dissect the equipment with her eyes. Thankful that Yudav did not try his luck again and inevitably leave them both feeling bad from a horrid interaction.

She held up another piece of technology, flipping it in her hands. Testing the weight.

Imagining what it did.

At times, it proved difficult to discern.

Much of the technology was propriety information and sealed well, descriptions redacted to keep the crucial information away from her prying eyes. There might be a secondary, more nefarious function it may have that was purposefully omitted (for obvious reasons). That left her only with the option to reverse-engineer their products if she truly wanted to learn their secrets.

She had the strongest feeling they would not take too kindly to her doing just that, especially in front of their eyes, using their very own tools to attempt to do so.

Just a feeling.

She could be wrong – though probably not.

(Fareeha can already imagine how quickly a dozen sentry turrets would immediately be programmed to blast her into smithereens if she decided to be so reckless)

Someone hovers close to her as she stoops over a small whirring machine.

She withholds a thought up irate remark as she smells jasmine and mint leaves. It is not Yudav beside her. Fareeha’s back cracks as she rises to her full height. She gives a deadpan stare at the newcomer.

And receives one back.

Without a single twitch in her face, Fareeha reaches into her pocket and pulled out her false hearing aid. She fits it squarely back into her ear, adjusts her cuffs, dialing each cufflink three turns to turn her mic and link up her comms. Winston alerts to her that systems are on. She then speaks.

“…Who are you?”

The woman held out her hand, nails perfectly manicured and painted in a royal blue.

“Satya Vaswani. Architect.”

She takes the hand and gives it a firm pump.

“Reem Al-Jassim. Engineer and advisor for Mr. Jacobs.”

She does not let go of her hand as her eyes wander to her left arm and the ceramic white prosthetic that started from the shoulder. It is different from the one Lucio had purchased for Mccree and Fareeha cannot remember seeing such a model on sale on the Vishkar website.

It couldn’t be a decommissioned model. It appeared far too new.

“Ms. Al-Jassim.” Satya’s conjecture cuts into her thoughts like a knife, and Fareeha’s heart skipped a beat at the imperious stare she delivers as she pointedly removes her hand from her grasp.

Fareeha does not apologize. Al-Jassim wouldn’t.

“An architect.” She moves the conversation along. “What kind?”

Just the buildings, or for the rest of the tech. She wanted to know about this mysterious woman who came up and entered these quarters without being stopped. Mr. Korpal had said that this room would be cleared as they looked around. Corporations like these did not have mistaken entries when they did not want them.

What sort of clearance did she have?

Satya’s voice is smooth and strong when she responds.

“What kind of architect?”

There is the slightest hint of pride in the way she rounds her vowels and her eyes were magnetic as she stared Fareeha down. She smiles and the slight curve of her lips is commanding, like there was no other truth in the world than the words that passed through her lips. No other truth to believe in.

“The best Vishkar has to offer.”

Fareeha slipped. She quirked a brow, intrigued at the confidence.

She watched Satya leave her side to greet Mccree and Angela without question. Observing her with quiet regard. Satya moved like royalty, elegant and dignified with every step of her heels, dress swaying only slightly so. When Mccree lifts her hand to press a kiss to her knuckles and Mr. Korpal does not reprimand Satya when she rips her hand away like Mccree’s touch was acid on the skin, both of her brows lift. Lifting further when Mr. Korpal holds a steady hand to Mccree’s chest as he stepped in front of Satya to stop another advancement.

She meets Angela’s eyes for a second.

Angela looks equally surprised by the turn of events, probably recounting in her mind that Mr. Korpal had not extended the same veil of protection to Ms. Aggarwal when Mccree had initially harassed her.

One thing became evidently clear.

Satya Vaswani is a very very, important woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooooo, she finally here. Symmetra is here ( ~~and so the drama begins~~ ).  
> I cannot wait to write her. <3


	7. Make Believe

As most children did, Angela had grown up hearing fantastical stories. Night after night before bedtime, her father would indulge her wild imagination with wilder stories. Stories of evil queens and their legion of loyal fiends, red-scaled magic dragons and women that were so beautiful, kings would conquer cities just to see them smile. Her father would light up whenever Angela shrieked or laughed or became wide-eyed in wonder at the climaxes of his vivid tales.

Her favorite story though, was one her mother had made.

A story about a castle in the sky.

\------------------------------

Angela has seen many things in her life.

She has travelled to all four corners of the world and discovered more than most people would, even if they were granted three lifetimes for the sole purpose of exploration. 

God had given her a heart that wanted to help and help she did, as many places as she could.

Angela has climbed the mountains of Tibet single-handedly to aid an influenza outbreak in silent monasteries. Has visited a backwood town in Virginia to save a man dying from some mysterious unheard of illness. Traversed without complaint all the way to the cliffside city of Rocamadour to meet with a fellow researcher who was nearing his end and needed to pass down his knowledge to someone he could trust. And in her travels, she became privy to technological advances and breathtaking discoveries that would stun the most stoic of men.

For the world was large, and in it, a breadth of incredible wonders and talented people.

One thing she has never seen though, was this.

The black suitcase she held slipped through her fingers, landing on the floor with a dull thud. She walked forward unsurely, teetering and dreamlike as her gaze stayed glued to the airborne structure. Her hands found the railing of this rooftop and curled over the smoothened steel as she leaned forward – trying to get as close as possible to what was hovering a little ways above.

It was unbelievable. Up in the air, a fairy tale come true.

A castle in the sky.

She had no words, throat gone dry. Neither did Winston, if the strange stilted gasps and incoherent stuttering crackling through her earpiece was of any indication. Lena, was oddly quiet as well. The sight in front of her seemed to have left all three of them dumbstruck.

It truly was incredible.

When Ms. Vaswani had led them up to the rooftop, she had not expected the large shadow casted over the space to come from a floating structure, which aptly shielded them from where the sun sat at this hour with its massive size. A structure that glittered and shined in the cloudless day, reflecting and refracting sunlight a million ways with its diamond-like walls and windows, its glory undimmed by the dust and sand of the desert below. Completely untouched, actually.

It was a magnificent sight. Ethereal. Practically magic-

But not quite.

Magic wasn’t real. She knew that.

(No matter how much she wished it to be when she was younger)

“What is that?” She heard Fareeha ask slowly, voice barely adrift in the wind from its whispered register. Nonetheless she could hear the way Fareeha’s cogs were turning in her head, attempting to discern how on earth Vishkar had managed to pull this off.

“That, is where I will be taking you next.” Ms. Vaswani answered.

Angela picked up her jaw and forcibly made herself turn around at a respectably unhurried fashion, careful to not look like an eager loon at the thought of going up there. Mccree had not done the same. He was shaking in his boots, restless with anticipation. He whistled low and long and took his hat off his head and rested it on his chest. His full attention directed on Ms. Vaswani.

“Now that, is good to hear.” Mccree praised. One of his eyebrows was quirked high and the excited gleam in his eye was something nobody could deny. “Because y’all can’t show me a view like that and _not_ take me there.”

For the first time that day, Ms. Vaswani smiled at Mccree.

It grew slowly, lips transforming from a flat pressed line to a coquettish smirk stained with confidence. The woman glowed, unerringly proud of the reaction that was falling all around her from their group. As lead architect, there was not a single doubt in Angela’s mind that Ms. Vaswani had a large hand in creating the monument they were all breathless about.

“Certainly.” She said smoothly then cocked her head at Mr. Korpal. She extended her hand out. “May I?”

“Do the honors, Satya.” Mr. Korpal said graciously as he handed her large hand-held device with three prongs. White in color with black finishing. “Show them why you are one of our best and brightest to paving the way for a better future.”

Ms. Vaswani nodded and walked towards them with poise, one foot in front of the other in delicate steps, a meticulous hand holding onto the device and booting it up. Her purple and white uniform swished as she glided on over. She and Mccree side-stepped out of the way wordlessly as Ms. Vaswani closed in, watching the regal woman with baited breath.

Excited to witness what she would do so they would be able to get up to that impenetrable castle with no visible lifts or pathways to it.

Ms. Vaswani lifted her bionic hand and Angela felt her belief that magic wasn’t real be tested as her palm glowed and a ball of blue light formed out of thin air. With a delicate flick of her wrist and a push by slim fingertips, the orb was lobbed into the device from a side-chamber. The three-pronged device whirred and a beam of light spilled forth from the center-front chamber, stabilized by some unseen force emitting from each of the three prongs that rotated around it. The only tell of the invisible force was a slight distortion in space, only detectable if one squinted.

Slowly, with the grace of a dancer and the precision of an engineer, Ms. Vaswani laid down floating planks of hard light that went up and up, all the way to the large doors of the structure above. It almost seemed unreal, like a pretty illusion, the notion staying in her head even as Ms. Vaswani went up the light beams as she made them. Careful to make handrails as well, made of slimmer beams of that same blue, blue light.

“I can hardly believe it.” Mccree grinned out, charmed by the sight. “She just made a stairway to heaven.”

And as Ms. Vaswani stood at the stop of those steps she had made in a matter of minutes and stared down at them, at her, Angela felt like a pauper staring up at a sorceress queen who had come to greet them as they entered her domain.

\------------------------------

"Veronica! Quit dilly-dallying!" Mccree yelled over his shoulder, halting his gallivant up the stairs to speak. His handlebar mustache rustled from the dusty breeze and one hand was raised to secure his hat onto his head in fear of it flying off. "The emerald city awaits us!"  
  
Fareeha paused mid-step and turned around, wondering what could be holding Angela up.  
  
"Just a moment!" Angela replied, wobble in her tone.  
  
Fareeha’s forehead wrinkled and her eyes narrowed. She adjusted her spectacles as she observed the peculiar sight of Angela fumbling and postulating to take the first step up the stairs. Stuck at the bottom with a petrified expression. She frowned.  
  
"Doctor?"  
  
She descended back down the neon blue steps, steps which dipped slightly as she transferred her weight from one plank to another. Not by a lot, not a large give by any means, only a small little bounce that sprung back up as gently. It felt like she was walking on the white keys of a piano.  
  
She stuffed her hands in her pockets as she stared down at Angela inquiringly.  
  
"What's wrong?" She asked, concerned and perhaps slightly puzzled, at the sheet white fear of her girlfriend. For the moment, Fareeha forgot that Angela was acting, and that she herself should be keeping in character as well.  
  
(Lucky for her, everyone else was already up ahead at the top of the stairs, and though Ms. Aggarwal was coming back down, she had yet to be in earshot)  
  
Angela licked her lips and released a tightly wounded laugh that failed to alleviate her worries.  
  
"Heights are just a little..." She laughed pathetically, avoiding her gaze or looking around in general. "Do not worry, I will be fine."

Fareeha blanched internally at that, head jerking a tick backwards.

“What?” She croaked out, barely above a wheeze.

Afraid of heights? What?

_Her?_

“Are you alright, Dr. Mueller?” Ms. Aggarwal asked as she arrived at the bottom of the stairs, smoothing her disarrayed hair. It was at that moment that Fareeha remembered that her alias, Veronica Mueller, _is_ supposed to be afraid of heights – as what was provided by the dossier on the woman. “We forgot you had a fear of heights. Complete oversight by us, um, we can arrange something else for you to get up there-”

Angela waved her off.

“No, no. It’s fine. I can do it-”

“What’s the hold up?” Mccree yelled from the top, arms crossed and tapping one foot in agitation. “Al! Veronica! Hurry up and get up here! I got things to see!”

“The little doctor is afraid!” Fareeha groused loudly in explanation, getting back into character. “Should we just leave her here?”

“We’re not leaving anyone behind. Just- ugh. Al. Go find a way to get both your asses here!” He yelled back then swiveled on his heel, hand raised in a wave. “I’ll head in first.”

While Mr. Korpal followed the temperamental man, Ms. Vaswani stayed perched on top of the stairs, most likely keeping the whole structure together. Fareeha turned to Angela and took the suitcase from her with one hand as she held out her other arm meaningfully.

“Come, Dr. Mueller.” She huffed out, disdain coloring her dry register. “Hold on. We will go up together.”

Angela stared at her offered elbow and after some… encouragement (“If you don’t hurry up I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you up like a sack of potatoes – I don’t care if you struggle.”) she nodded and curled both arms around Fareeha’s bicep. They walked slowly, Ms. Aggarwal flanking Angela’s other side so the woman was sandwiched in the middle of them as they walked up and up, to Ms. Vaswani and the inviting fortress behind her.

\------------------------------

Her dream may have been to be a hero, but Fareeha has always been a little bit in love with being up high.  
  
She'd climb up to the rooftop of her house and sneak to the top floor of the sand-colored watchtowers that surrounded Cairo when she was young. Gaze at the millions of stars above and wonder what it would be like to be among them. To soar in that eternal dark sky. So much older than she was, than anything in the world was, present since the dawn of time.  
  
Thinking one day, if nothing else, she would visit the moon colony.  
  
Becoming a rocketeer was an inevitability. The rush of flying at sky-rocket speeds, hot thrusters pushing her higher and higher, the burn of the wind on her lower jaw as she relentlessly moved forwards. Feeling like she could jet off straight into the stratosphere if she wished.  
  
It was exhilarating.  
  
A freedom unlike any other kind.  
  
So by all accounts, she should have been ecstatic about stepping into a fortress that nestled itself among the open breeze, two thousand feet above ground.  
  
But... It was different.  
  
This hovering structure had striked her at first.

Being the only blight and spot in the otherwise clear desert sky, how could it not?

Her body had initially moved of its own accord, and her mind was eager to find out the secret to this floating beast. The subterfuge Vishkar and their cunning architects must have employed to achieve such a feat.  
  
She didn’t think that the secret would be so deceptively simple.

The structure commanded people to look up, so she looked down. It was the oldest trick in the book. A simple sleight of hand. The answer laying in the place where the orchestrator did not want one to look, where they had redirected the attention away. There, on the ground, at the center of this complex and right below the distracting floating dome was large circular structure that resembled the middle chamber of the light projector Ms. Vaswani held.   
  
A gravity chamber. The largest she has seen.  
  
"Are you alright, Ms. Al-Jassim? Most people get a little dizzy from stepping foot in this magical area."  
  
She gave Mr. Yudav a cursory glance.   
  
"Save your breath, Yudav. Magic is simply science undiscovered yet.” She iterated, mimicking something both Winston and Angela have told her before. The same pompous flare in her tone. “And I saw the graviton in the center garden. I know this tower’s secret. This fortress is held stagnant though by stabilizers I assume... Though I have yet spot them."  
  
She adds enough irritation to that last statement.

Mr. Yudav laughed politely, scratching the back of his neck.  
  
"Nothing gets past you, huh? Let me help you with that last bit." He went to the window and pointed at one of the ornamental pieces fitted on the edges of the building. "That looks like a simple architectural addition, but it’s actually a stabilizer. We have seven more, two on each building surrounding this building. The structure only needed six, but we added two more just to be on the safe side."  
  
"Mm."  
  
It was a smart idea. Not only did having this building be the centerpiece make the whole complex rise by a few margins in valuation, it also made this concept design easer to implement. High vantages from all around already created to fit the stabilizers on.  
  
She had to applaud the Vishkar architects for thinking of that.  
  
"And power? This must take a bit of juice."  
  
Mr. Yudav smiled.  
  
"Discrete solar panel tech lining the sides of every building. The gift of the desert is hot sun all year round and not a cloud in the sky." He swiveled to face her completely. "But enough about the tech - what do you think about the inside?"  
  
She quirked her lips as she took gave the place a onceover. If she had to describe the place, it would be an inversion of the Shah Cheragh – a funerary monument and mosque in Shiraz, Iran. The outside of that place made it seem like a humble abode that was the same as any other decently sized and decently well-cared for place of worship. Upon entering, any visitor would be greeted with the breathless sight as the interior was fitted with millions of tiny mirror shards that reflected and refracted light in every direction. This floating section of the complex was just the opposite. An incredible shimmering exterior and far more normal interior.

Not to say that the décor in this place was mediocre.

It was still all rather impressive.

She heard a cough. It was Mr. Yudav, still waiting anxiously for a response. She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"It's alright, I guess..."

\------------------------------

Angela's torso twisted left and right as she moved perennially forwards. She barely seemed to notice the way her medical suitcase knocked against her knees as she walked, stupidly being held in front of her by the handle with both hands. She appeared to be taking in the sight of this palatial quarters made for Vishkar's higher ups and their best architects without shame, a point emboldened by the dainty 360 turn she did on her heels to get a good look around.

A view her tech received as well.

The camera of her supposed second phone, which conveniently jutted out of the breast pocket of her jacket. A phone that didn’t actually work and was simply disguised tech - a second version that pocket-sized machine she had on the first day that presumably scan for air quality and any traces of radiation. Like its predecessor, it too belied a true functionality to instead scan areas of a room, the dimensions and the large fixtures within them. Cataloguing these facts to transcribe a detailed map back on Athena’s hard drive. It was the same thing really, except for the newly added feature of creating a virtual copy of the room with accurately rendered details, largely in part of the actual camera part of this new device.

So Angela may be acting completely spellbound, unable to tear her eyes away from anything in these place, but she hadn’t actually forgotten she was on the job. By all means, she was honestly fairly excited at stepping foot in a space that floated in air, but it would be wrong to say she wasn’t exaggerating a slight. Enough so she could gawk and stop and lean towards corners to calculate the area without arising suspicion.

Like she unfortunately did the first day.

" _Watch out Mercy!! Stop-_ "

Winston’s word of caution came too late. Not paying attention to what was in front of her, she unwittingly crashed right into Fareeha's back with her face. An embarrassingly loud smack ringed at the contact (and the way Winston cringed audibly in her ear before flurrying out a few apologies for not warning her sooner only made her turn redder). Angela hissed and reached up to rub at the indents her spectacles. Indentations deepened from being pressed upon the soft cartilage hard from the blowback of ramming straight into Fareeha’s unbuckling back.

Her eyes flickered up. Fareeha was still facing forwards, like Angela hadn’t just barreled into her. Like she hadn’t even noticed her. Completely disregardful to the whole incident.

She squinted and jutted her lips.

Al-Jassim was honestly, so rude.

She stomped over to her side and was ready to give an expected scolding when she saw what had grabbed her attention. They were in yet another tech room - but far different from the ones she saw before. The ones in the buildings below, she means. The things in here made the stuff downstairs seem like child's play. So much more than items for basic security or architectural construction were on display. All begging for some attention. Most of all, in the corner of the room appearing almost like a decorative display, was a meter length geometric shard with the span of two hands at its thickest length.

A monolith with grooves and circuit lines that ran like gold-leaded rivers.

It was one of those mysterious artifacts they have been finding throughout their missions and storing at base in frigid temperatures. Larger than any sample size they had.

She did not need Winston’s urgings in her ear to be compelled forwards.

She went towards it and pressed a hand to the cool obelisk, running her fingers on the grooves of gold. Perhaps she imagined it, but she thought it had flashed with light. It tingled her fingertips.

"Dr. Mueller?"

She withheld the urge to flinch and tacked on a perfect smile.

"Ms. Vaswani, what is this?" She asked in an easy tone, tapping at the shard. She appeared casually interested. "It doesn’t have a label or anything."

Ms. Vaswani stared with narrowing eyes, an arm draping itself across her own sternum, hand pressed into her ribcage by the elbow of her other hand as that hand reached up to touch her fingertips to her chin. An introspective pose. Ms. Vaswani was placing a great amount of thought to her innocent question.

"... I do not know what it is." Ms. Vaswani finally answered in a cool fashion, punctuated by a small defeated breath at the end. She waved her hand. "It is unimportant anyways, this and all the other displays similar to it-" She gestured at other monoliths dispersed in the room– "are scheduled to be scrapped by the end of today. Most likely why there is no labels."

"Scrapped? Where do things that are scrapped go?"

She shrugged.

"There is this unlabeled room in the main building. In the level two basement, between research room 46 and the researcher’s-"

"Breakroom." She finished, before her eyes widened realizing her mistake.

"...You know it?" No judgment colored Ms. Vaswani’s tone, only simple curiosity. "Don’t tell me Sanjay brought you in there during the tour. Even I’ve never been there."

“Really?” She asked, genuinely surprised.

From what she had witnessed, Mr. Korpal has somewhat of a soft spot for the woman. Not allowing Mccree to harass her upon meeting and calling her the best and brightest at the rooftop. First name basis as well, unlike his other two colleagues.

It was surprising that she didn’t know what dirty little secret he was hiding in there.

“No. Why would I?” She said, oblivious to Angela’s internal dialogue.

Then Ms. Vaswani paused, catching herself in a reflection off a polished steel display. She walked towards it to fastidiously adjust the pinned badge on her uniform, fiddling with it until it was perfectly aligned once again. She then checked her manicured nails for chips. Once she was satisfied with her inspection, she flickered her focus back onto her, continuing on like she had never stopped.

"There is no reason Dr. Mueller, to stare at failures and past progression."

\------------------------------

Angela was enchanted.

“Hard-light is extremely pliable.” Ms. Vaswani stated, hand glowing blue as she started to pull geometric shapes into life right before her eyes. A heart. A diamond. A cube. Formed from the tips of her white polish nails. “It truly is the best vehicle to bend reality.”

She used to believe that she had a good thing going on. Angela had read dissertations and a plethora of reference books on hard-light in order to incorporate it to the latest model of her Valkyrie suit. She replaced her old rusty belt buckle of metal surgical tools with a device sewn into the seams of her suit. A device that allowed her to flourish surgical items of hard-light into being at the drop of the hat. She believed she had done a good job.

Watching Ms. Vaswani, she could see that she thought wrong.

The methods in which she created her tools and the quality of said tools was miles away from the way Ms. Vaswani handled hard-light. It was not so much handling as practically being the will of the object.

If Ms. Vaswani so much as thought it, it simply would be.

“Once the basics have been grasped, one can do so much more. Like so.”

Angela could only nod stiltedly as Ms. Vaswani formed a small bird, like those that nestle at the ceiling beams of a church. With a few strokes of her hands and twists of the thin blue light shooting out of her finger tips… It started to fly.

“Wow…” She breathed out.

 _“You got to be kidding me._ ” Lena whispered through her earpiece, equally as awed. “ _I thought Vishkar was a real estate company? That belongs in a performance theatre._ ”

“That is simply amazing, Ms. Vaswani.”

Ms. Vaswani let out a pleasant chuckle and moved her fingers to puppeteer the bird. She made it flutter its wings rapidly and fly around their frames before settling back onto her hand. Angela could only watch, enraptured by her complete mastery over hard-light and the structures she formed. Her tech felt so rudimentary in comparison that if she were to measure advancement by cyclical updates, she would be assessed as more than a couple years behind. Clunky and embarrassingly outdated.

“Would you like to touch?”

Her head snapped up. “T-touch? May I?”

Ms. Vaswani nodded.

“Yes. You certainly may.” She held out the bird in front of her, still moving it to her will. It hopped around in her palm. “Hold out your hand.”

Angela slowly unfurled her hand in front of her, trembling in anticipation. She let out a delighted gasp when the bird hopped onto her hand. Its small feet were warm to the touch (she catalogued that – perhaps she could conjure a space blanket imbued with this chemical property as well). As slowly as her outstretched hand, her other went to move to touch the top of the bird and yet another delighted chuckle left her lips as the hard-light lines of its head dipped slightly under the weight of her fingertip.

The tech has gone so far.

“This hard-light has some give, doesn’t it?” She mused, thinking back to her own version of the technology was all forms that came out as hard as a rock. They had to be. If she was slicing into someone with a hard-light scalpel and it bent or bobbed, there was surely to be trouble. “This is new, isn’t it? The last I heard hard-light was just that – hard light.”

Hard-light stitches, she thought. She could make stitches with this.

Though how long would it last?

“Your assessment is correct, Dr. Mueller. We have been testing out a variety of hard-light, imbued with different properties. This new venture has been proving useful for some of our endeavors.”

“I see.”

“No, you have not seen. You have only heard.” Ms. Vaswani corrected, she assumed somewhat teasingly.

Angela smiled and decided to take it as a well-meaning jest.

And Ms. Vaswani smiled back, before it dropped and she allows the bird to disintegrate into the air.

“Dr. Mueller.” She began humbly with a slight bow. “I apologize for earlier.”

Winston crackled in her ear.

“ _Angela, there is a computer by you. Plug in the USB drive to accumulate data. The tip will glow a dull purple once it’s done._ ”

She saw the computer in her periphery.

The orders were simple… But how on earth did Winston think she could just slide a hacking usb device into one of their private computers undetected? Ms. Vaswani was staring at her like a hawk. Unless Lucio’s hacker friend had instilled this USB with cloaking properties to make it invisible, there’s no way she could plug it in right now.

“Earlier?” She asked, needing clarification as to what Ms. Vaswani was referring too.

 _“Don’t worry. A distraction will come soon._ ”

“The stair incident. I did not know you were afraid of heights. Though you did have nothing to worry about as hard-light will not fail or break under the stress of any human weight – as I said before as you were struggling. A thin one-millimeter in thickness beam can withstand the weight of a small car.” She paused, thinking once more. “My words seemed to have little effect on you, however. Could you not hear me?”

Angela smiled kindly and kept the reproach subdued in her answer.

“Don’t feel bad. I understand that your intention was not to scare me. However Ms. Vaswani, logic is overridden when someone is in a state of fear and I think you need to take that into account in your assessment. I did heard you, but it didn’t mean anything because emotionally I was petrified.”

“… I understand.” Ms. Vaswani acknowledged. “I will take that into account if something like this happens again.”

“Good.” Angela said chipperly, then waved her off. There was no need for Ms. Vaswani to think on it for days, and she seemed like the type to perhaps do so. “But I’m fine, really. Ms. Al-Jassim had helped me up.”

And she can’t ever be mad about having an excuse to clutch onto her girlfriend.

“Yes. I saw. Ms. Al-Jassim is…”

She watched as Ms. Vaswani found her words. And settled on an ambiguous answer.

“…more helpful than I thought.”

Angela felt sympathy burst in her, knowing how Fareeha’s alias acted.

“She’s not that bad.”

Ms. Vaswani’s only reaction was to quirk a delicate brow.

“… She has basic human decency when it counts I suppose.” She rectified unwillingly. The flat line of her mouth became thinner and a distasteful look entered her eye. “But speak of the devil and they will arrive. I believe that is the expression.”

“What are you guys up to?”

Fareeha delivered the line taciturnly. Scowl deep set in her features, brow furrowed, necktie wound up too tight around the collar. The picture of an incorrigible hard ass.

And the cutest thing Angela had ever seen.

It should be scary, that grim fashion of her face. Her imposing frame. However, the sight of her girlfriend trying so hard to look tough in a club collar shirt and rounded spectacles, dressing more like an accountant from the 1940’s than any hardline gangster was the most adorable thing ever. She just wanted to reach up and lift the sides of Fareeha’s cheek to make the woman smile.

Maybe place a small kiss on those pouting lips.

But she couldn’t.

Well, she technically _could_ , but she shouldn’t.

They were on the job. It would not be in character and Fareeha’s heavy make-up would surely smudge. Her udjat would then subsequently show, the jig would be up, and they would all be in trouble in two seconds flat. Jailed or maybe worse. After all, Talon had sunk its claws into this organization in some form or other.

“I was demonstrating my hard-light technology.” Ms. Vaswani formed a butterfly. “There are no limits.” She said and released it in Fareeha's direction in a gesture of good will.

A gesture unreturned as Fareeha promptly swatted the butterfly away.

“This is nothing new though, is it?” She remarked gruffly. “I thought we came here to see what the secret project is. All I see is nothing impressive. Some things are even…” She side-eyed a sonic amplifier on display – colored in purples and whites instead of blues and greens. She settled her gaze back. “… Old news.”

Ms. Vaswani does not lash out.

Her jaw does not clench and her features do not change. Her voice was even as she spoke.

But it was cold.

So, so cold.

“Ms. Al-Jassim...”

“ _Mercy, plug the USB in now. Nobody’s looking at you.”_

“…Patience it seems, is not your strong suit.” She delivered tartly, accent curling her words regnant.

Fareeha scoffed.

“Wrong. Bullshit isn’t.”

No. What was wrong was this whole exchange.

Ms. Vaswani’s eyes flashed. “…What did you say?”

“ _Mercy? What are you waiting for?_ " Winston's inquiries seemed so far away. Barely registering to her. " _Plug it in.”_

“You fucking serious? And here I thought I was the one who was deaf in one ear.” Fareeha muttered dismissively. "There must be something wrong with you."

She couldn’t move. It was like watching a train wreck in front of her very eyes. She had never heard such a high level of vitriol come out of Fareeha’s mouth. She didn’t like it.

“Devolving to insults?” Ms. Vaswani remarked with a raised brow, lips curling in disgust. She crossed her arms. “What an absolute _child_.”

“Shut up. I’m not the one wasting people’s time with cheap gimmicks.”

“My skills…” There was a warble in Ms. Vaswani’s voice. She seemed to rise up further somehow, extending outwards with her chest, craning her head up to glare at Fareeha. Her arms crossed and her voice turned deathly quiet - yet taut, like bowstrings preparing to fire. “My skills,” She repeated. “Are. Not. Cheap. _Gimmicks._ ”

She spat out the last word like it was made of poison.

“Really now? They seem like it to me.”

“ _Mercy!_ " Winston was half-yelling in a panicky bumble. " _Now woud be a good time to plug the USB in and let Fareeha stop being an asshole!”_

For some reason Angela kicked into gear this time. She quickly obeyed Winston, utilizing the heated exchange between Fareeha and Ms. Vaswani to plug in the USB. Then she quickly sprung into action to put a stop to the escalating situation.

She just couldn’t take it anymore.

She stepped in front of Ms. Vaswani and stared Fareeha down hotly.

“Enough. Leave if you have nothing nice to say.” Fareeha made a motion to retaliate and she continued onwards, cutting her off. “We are here for business and if you cannot act professional, then perhaps you shouldn’t even be here.”

Fareeha worked her jaw, scoffed and left brusquely.

Angela watched Fareeha's retreating frame, until she was sure she would not hear a single further peep from the woman. And then, she turned back to Ms. Vaswani. She pursed her lips. The woman’s expression was flat, but Angela could see the insecurity in her eyes for those stabs on her intellect. The sullenness in those eyes that had seemed so vibrant only moments ago, as she showed her abilities with hard-light.

“… Are you alright?” She probed tentatively.

Ms. Vaswani inhaled and exhaled a steadying breath with closed eyes. Once her shoulders relaxed she nodded, eyes fluttering back open. She stared at her.

“I am fine, Dr. Mueller. Do not worry…” She sighed once more and folded her hands in her lap as she sat down on a chair. “I know there is nothing wrong with me.”

Angela gave a weak smile and sat next to her.

“Ms. Vaswani, if it’s not too much trouble, would you show me more hard-light maneuvers? I think it’s fascinating.” She said, meaning every word.

“…You do?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Yes. So won’t you please?”

Ms. Vaswani perked up once more, slowly and with composure. With dignity. She smiled gratefully at Angela. Her hand twirled and light blue came out like dancing lace.

“Then let me show you.”

\------------------------------

Fareeha fiddled with the sonic amplifier, turning it in her hand.

“Winston,” She muttered as she clicked the buttons and imagined the subwoofer trailing a blaze of sound out in waves. Lucio’s greatest hits came into the forefront of her mind. “Plugging that USB better have been worth it.”

She was free to speak for the moment as Mr. Yudav had been called over by Mccree – trying the dumbest plan to procure those monoliths of ancient unknown artifacts. Attempting to barter for them under the guise of unique art pieces he wanted for his antique collection.

“You were going to throw them out anyways, right? Just give’em to me.”

“I cannot Mr. Jacobs.” Mr. Korpal deflected with ease with that perpetual glass smile of his, taking over when Mr. Yudav started to scramble out of excuses. “They are still prototypes of something we are working on. As such we cannot have them leave the premises.”

Angela had been angry. Sure it was at her persona, but it was still her actions.

And she had every right to be.

She had crossed more than a few lines in her tirade. Words she had regretted even before they left her mouth. She had channeled the worst colleagues she ever served time with in the military a little too well. Her tongue felt like it had been washed with acid.

“ _I think its true._ " Winston finally answered. " _Athena herself took a while to defend herself from the hacking power installed into that drive. It had taken quite a bit of information – though don’t worry, I deleted that information of course.”_

She grunted.

“Fine.” She acquiesced.

Still, the guarantee failed to recede the churning in her gut.

She prayed she never would interact one-on-one with Ms. Vaswani ever again during the rest of this excursion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Got some bad news for you Fareeha...  >.>
> 
> Being serious here, if anyone is willing to help me out, what are some traits I can give Symmetra to make her seem on the spectrum without it being like I’m making fun of autistic people by overdoing it? Like what is something they (and more specifically Symmetra) would do that I can subtly incorporate. Comment down below.


	8. Fighting Words

Tonight’s meeting was going over as well as she had expected.

“You cannot be serious, Winston.”

She already had an inkling as to the topics that would be broached during the silent and solitary drive back home. Topics that definitely would at least ignite one or two arguments and give life to sharply barbed tongues. Her hands had worked the steering wheel in uncomfortable anticipation, unease drenching the lining of her stomach whenever she caught glance of Angela through the rearview mirror.

The poorly executed veneer of calm Angela held told Fareeha that the woman had a fairly good idea by then as well.

“Consider this for a moment though: What _other_ way is there?”

Winston was grumbling, a picture of exhaustion. There was a heavy strain in his register, born from the compiling effect of the day’s events; activities that stretched from picking through the data accumulated and cleaned up with a fine-tooth comb to the current migraine of an argument he was embattled in currently.

“Lucio’s idea – as much as I would prefer not employ such methods myself,” He rushed out under his breath before his voice rose again to prominence. “Well, it really seems to be the most viable option considering the current circumstances.”

“No. It does not. Don’t you see that it goes against everything we have strived to build once more? Don’t tell me you do not believe that.”

Winston busied himself with cleaning his spectacles needlessly for third time.

“Winston. Answer me.”

Winston withdrew his attention from his spectacles and locked eyes with her.

“Angela, please.” He begged. “We have no other choice-”

“We. Do.” She countered tersely. “And we will.”

He put a hand on his hip and the other one in the air, spectacles still in hand.

“Like _what_?”

Fareeha grinded her teeth. The two of them had been going back and forth for the last twenty minutes with no end in sight. Lucio to his credit, had shut up and stopped trying to help Winston’s cause after the fifth minute. Angela was not one to be trifled with in any heated discussion without ample preparation and his small comments went duly unappreciated.

Along with being utterly useless.

Lucio may be a freedom fighter akin to fighting against the odds, but Angela had lived through being a staunch pacifist in a highly militaristic organization such as Overwatch. Keeping at it even through such arduous times like an Omnic crisis.

A successful, pacifist.

Fareeha remembers that one iconic moment that had ran on every news network. A page in history where Angela had commanded two roiling armies down with her dalliances with their top politicians, dining on roasted chicken and fennel salad with the two heads of the warring states.

It wasn’t hard to deduce who would win in a battle of wits fought with words-strung arguments.

Furthermore, Angela would’ve needed to be deaf, blind and stupidly dumb not to catch the prejudice that colored Lucio’s views on Vishkar. The scars from the rebellion he fought from years ago still ran deep. Winston himself had hurriedly shut Lucio out of communication earlier today, inhibiting his choice words from prattling in their ears as they conducted their espionage. Statements directed primarily at Mr. Korpal and Ms. Vaswani. Two members of Vishkar he had apparently crossed hairs with before.

(Not on good terms)

The point was, the way he was ready to bring them down a peg through any means necessary made his statements completely rubbish in Angela’s mind, far too biased to be taken into proper account. Of that, Fareeha was sure.

“For the last time, Winston. I – Have – Told – You – Other – Ways.” Angela said slowly, enunciating to him like he was a child.

Fareeha winced. Sure, she wasn’t shouting per say… but this was Angela. She might as well have been throwing pots and pans and swearing to high heaven. The patronizing tone indicated that all semblance of politeness had been thrown out the window.

“I do not understand why you have chosen to ignore each and every one of my alternative solutions.”

“Because they are not _feasible_.” Winston argued again, huffing and growing to become as equally irate. His hand waved manically as he underlined his points. Fareeha feared his spectacles would snap from the wild movements. “It would take too long to enact any of those plans. We do not have the resources at current for some. And furthermore, time is of the essence. I thought you of all people would understand what it means to be rational-… Uh…”

Fareeha cringed, Mccree covered his eyes with his hat, and Lena suddenly found her hands to be rather interesting. Mei was lucky, apparently mobilizing someplace else tomorrow early morning, she had retired to her room hours ago. She really had just swung by here apparently, as a convenient rest stop before travelling to wherever her final destination might be.

Winston shouldn’t have said that.

Judging from the way he had trailed off was currently trying to backpedal as Angela’s eyes turned to slits, he had quickly understood that too.

It was too late though.

The damage had been done.

“… Hmm?”

Fareeha felt goosebumps form on her arms from the icy tone, cold as the flint in her eyes. Winston was no longer fighting Angela Ziegler, renowned pacifist and critically acclaimed doctor. He was in the fire of a Valkyrie, those hosts of female figures who decided who got to live and who got to die on the battlefield. A Valkyrie spitting, and in this battle, Angela has definitely marked Winston to die.

“No, it is you who is being irrational, Winston. You have been obfuscating, unreasonable and have forgotten all semblance of the required rationale needed for our operations considering our tentative position and our future aspirations. I’ll outline exactly what is irrational about your plans: One. By. One.”

“Angela-”

Fareeha wasn’t one to shrink in her seat, but there she was, sliding down and unconsciously making herself seem a bit scarcer in the face of the mudslinging fest in front of her – even if the hard-fashioned neutral gaze and strongly crossed arms that stayed in place might’ve made her appear otherwise. She scrunched her face as a particularly venomous remark flew out. The fight in front of her truly felt like one of those wildfires her father would combat in his forests, only she knew that she was no water hose or a lucky passing rain. Any input by her would be akin to a gallon of gasoline thrown into the mix.

“Okay. Look, I understand why you’re angry, but-”

“-But nothing, Winston. And I am not done.”

Processing the data they procured through the USB in tandem with the discovery of those artifacts had effectively guided them into deeper, far more troubling waters. Results had turned up a few discrepancies with accounting measures and the actual projects Vishkar outlined. Missing cash, unaccounted for transactions, unmarked transportations and a myriad of other red flags. The diligent staff they had back at headquarters, the number crunching sort, had quickly deduced that there were large plans being sold off to some private buyer that most likely was a shell company owned by Talon.

And whatever they were buying, was stored in some facility that didn’t actually exist in anything but name.

The transcript of the shipping equipment and the special care of the packaging of those equipment ringed similar to the shape and size of those obelisks she had seen, along with similar maintenance guidelines to the artifacts of the same sort Winston had stored back at headquarters. Judging from the date stamped from the dated shipment, they had two days at best before those items were shipped. Two days to figure out what data Vishkar had on those artifacts and to (in the best-case scenario) procure those artifacts themselves, before they disappeared into the dark once more.

Which led to the current predicament in front of her.

An explosive argument as to the morality of literally breaking and entering into Vishkar to get what they needed in after-hours. The plan teetered far too closely, in Angela’s opinion, to the sordid sort of operations that Blackwatch had gotten into. Those dark and murky gray areas that could sometimes be rather Machiavellian in nature.

“Fareeha.”

She sat up abruptly at the mention of her name. She hoped she hadn’t missed anything important, though the meaningful stares at her said otherwise. She gulped and leaned forward on the desk, uncrossing her arms to lay them on the desk. She tilted her head in indication of her attention.

“What do you think?”

She wet her lips and fumbled out a clarification.

“… About the… plan…?” She guessed stiltedly and wished she didn’t drag out her words exactly like that.

“Yes.” Winston affirmed. “Me and Angela are at an impasse, and you’ve been rather quiet.” Winston continued on as he cleaned his glasses, wholly disregarding the dullness in her response and the confused edges to it. “What do you think? Your words certainly hold some weight, so we would like your input.”

She licked her lips again.

She had realized the conversation would steer towards her at some point (though, why for the life of her Jesse and Lena were excluded from this uncomfortable narrative, she did not know – lucky bastards). She clicked her tongue to stall for time. The ride back home was not long enough and neither was the argument that had been currently ensued. She wanted at least another twenty minutes to juggle the facts in her head.

“Fareeha.”

Angela’s imminent stare was upon her. She pursed her lips and drummed on the desk with her fingers.

Her mind went into overtime.

On one hand, she was keenly aware of the intensity of Angela’s gaze and the message behind the sharp look. It was as clear as a sunny day. On any other occasion she would have been happy with the attention of those striking baby blues, especially after the somewhat of a silent treatment she had been on the receiving end of ever since they got back in the car. She had, gone a little too far with Ms. Vaswani and had yet to explain her grievous actions.

Selling a vote in Angela’s favor would help appease her somewhat for that conversation down the road.

Yet her tongue felt fat in her mouth. Tied by her own heart.

She was a woman who has made plenty of tough calls for the sake of peace and securing a safer future. This one call in particular, held significant weight in that regard and had implications that ran along international lines – never mind the impact on her girlfriend if she so said the something that she believed erroneous. Her mind calculated the options. Filed and ranked them.

Her mood plummeted from her own conclusions.

Her hands stilled. They stopped beating on the lacquered wood of the table. She worked her jaw. The room suddenly seemed so much quieter without the drumming of her fingertips. The blanketing tension felt like it increased tenfold in the stretching silence.

“Fareeha?”

It was Angela who murmured her name this time.

Fareeha took a deep breath and recounted an old Arabic proverb she had heard often in her mind.

_Odrob el haddid wa howa hami_

It translated to: Hit the iron while it’s hot.

It’s actual meaning: Don’t postpone the issue. Do not procrastinate.

The ink on her skin burned and Fareeha fisted her hands as she gathered courage. And when she spoke, strong and full, not all the time in the world could have prepared her for the flash of sorrow and hurt that crossed Angela’s eyes.

And that little mix, that little mix of rage that brimmed beneath it all that she could spot?

It had pierced straight to the depths of her soul.

\------------------------

Angela had waited.

She had waited until the meeting was over. Kept mum and made not one remark the whole way to their room. Forcibly relaxed her grinding jaw with every step, stopping it from locking into a gnashing snarl. A needless act perhaps. It wasn’t like anybody would’ve known – the growl was concealed behind neatly pursed lips, after all.

And when they got to their room, she had promptly changed, brushed her teeth, folded her clothes, stored her spy tech and slipped under the covers. She sat with her back against the headboard, staring at the drywall before her as she counted the passing time. Simply waiting for her heart to settle. For it to no longer stormed like a thundercloud in her ribcage.

She waited, and waited.

And waited some more.

And when her hands ceased to rub the worry stone that once rested by her bedside drawer to oblivion, and her heart became only a steady hum, Angela decided she had waited long enough. Even if the conversation upcoming would be uncomfortable. Even if Fareeha seemed yet unwilling to retire to bed as well yet, nor have this conversation if she was to deduce things from her turned back.

Perhaps it was better this way anyways.

The distance between them.

The lack of eye-contact.

“How could you?”

Fareeha sat hunched a little ways away at the small study desk propped to the wall. Her hands were fiddling with the new tech she received from Lucio – a small gift from the techies back at home base he had couriered here in the off-chance it was needed. That time, according to everybody else, had apparently come. It was to be used for tomorrow’s… ‘agenda’.

“Winston asked me my opinion. I answered.”

“And you’re okay with what he is asking of us?”

“…I will do what I must.”

Fareeha picked up a screwdriver or some sort of small object. No doubt she was undergoing some maintenance on the little gizmo she had been given. Usually the sound of Fareeha tinkering calmed Angela. A small act of normality in their hectic lives.

This time, not so much.

“I thought you were on my side.”

Fareeha abruptly stopped whatever she was doing and swiveled on her chair. She looked off-put.

“Angela. I _am_ on your side. You know this.”

Angela played with the worry stone in her hands idly, flipping it in her palms.

“Well you have a funny way of showing it.” She remarked flippantly.

From Fareeha’s mouth came a string of soft mumbles. She heard the heavy thud of a metal object dropped. Rolling plastic wheels rolled closer and in the corner of her vision she could make out the approaching silhouette of Fareeha. The bed dipped from leaning arms. Taut forearms rested near her folded hands and laying thighs, and thereby more centered in her vision as she continued to look resolutely down at the worry stone in her hands and not at Fareeha.

“It’s not any consolation I’m sure, but I would’ve never undermined you if we were in public.” A pause. Calloused hands reached out to place themselves over hers. She avoided them. A long-suffering and tired sigh expelled from Fareeha as she retracted her unwanted touch. “I get it. You don’t agree. But this is bigger than you and me, and in my honest professional opinion, I truly believe that Winston’s plan is sound considering the things in play.”

“And in your ‘professional opinion’, you didn’t think mine were.” She finished, bitterly and a little brokenly.

She wiped at her nose.

“That’s not what I said.” Fareeha said firmly, objection clear. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

She lifted her head to stare at the drywall again, continuing in her pattern of not meeting Fareeha’s gaze. She stroked at the worry stone with force. She felt her heart start to uncage again.

The rage she had so successfully stifled had come back with a vengeance.

“That’s not what you meant. That’s not what you meant.” She repeated bitterly. “When do the reasons behind an action justify an action? Doesn’t one need to take responsibility? If I do not mean to hurt someone, but I do, do I not have to apologize? If we graduate from espionage to literal breaking and entering, are we to simply pat ourselves on the back and justify our crimes with the epitaph that we are doing this in the name of good?”

They were marching to the same shell-case riddled tunes of Blackwatch. Angela had almost thrown up when she surfaced the true extent of Blackwatch’s activities later down the line, years after Overwatch first decommissioned itself. The nature of their missions to the methods in which they carried out their objectives through any means necessary. Torture, blackmail –

Moira.

She had faith that Blackwatch had regulations in place when they kicked out that amoral woman out, and perhaps once upon a time they did. Toeing the line and putting on masks of the underground without actual becoming the mask just yet. Doing dirty work with at least a few rules intact and reforming those society had turned their back on. Those folks that actually could still be saved if they had a chance.

Like Mccree. Like Genji-

…

Did they really save Genji though?

(Did she?)

And then they sunk.

Deeper and deeper into the dangerous web they weaved, into the dark abyss of lies and grayed out lines. A dark so black that they forgot the shapes of their own faces and the center core of their objectives. Operating falsely under the rotting impression that they were simply carrying things out like the good old days – like the strike team. Free from bureaucratic red tape in order to do a job well done.

She should’ve seen the signs when Mccree had left.

When he turned his back on the man who gave him a second chance. A man that at one point in his life, he would’ve followed down to the very depths of hell for.

Speaking of which, Gabriel had been a haunted man in his final days. Gaunt and a shell of what he was. Angry. Desperate. Wild. Paranoid. Thirsting for a dream that had long passed as the world changed. Seeking to make a lawless strike team when the world had needed a strike team no more.

Ironically, they needed one now, when he was no longer alive.

And she was part of it.

The way they were operating though…

It was too far. Too much. Too similar to the gnarled and twisted operations of Blackwatch as they chased a long past ideal with damaged forms of imitation.

“Well? Do ends justify the means?”

Fareeha kept silent. She was only staring at her with unreadable eyes. Angela’s anger was kindled further.

“Is it righteous, is it justice – Is it _right_?”

She faced Fareeha fully, done with waiting for an answer that was taking long to come. The woman’s silence deafening to her ears, as thrumming as they were with rushing blood and the red heat of aggravation.

“You must have an opinion, so speak. You so readily vouched for such a plan, after all.”

Fareeha balked.

“Don’t put this only on me.” Fareeha fired back with a shake of her head and whispered discontent. “I wasn’t the one who was all excited at first about espionage.” Angela flinched. “I didn’t start us down this road – and you said it yourself in the beginning. These are special circumstances and time is of the essence.”

Angela took a deep breath and released a shuddered exhale.

“Well…”

She swallowed. Her throat felt tight. Her voice cracked.

“…Maybe I was wrong.”

\------------------------

It was getting late. The mission had an early start tomorrow morning.

She should be sleeping.

Operative word: Should.

Instead her stomach was doing somersaults. A nauseating feeling swished and swirled the contents of her gut. A feeling born from anxiety, powerful enough to gnaw away at her exhaustion and keep her awake in bed at an hour where she should be asleep.

And other than the obvious issues she had with the mission, and yet somehow tied to it anyways, it all stemmed from the woman beside her. This mission was clearly having an adverse effect on her Fareeha. Since day one, Fareeha had become overly aggressive with the way she went about her alias. They had constructed Reem Al-Jassim to be irate, moot and rough around the edges – that all was true. The way that Fareeha had brought her to life though…

Angela rubbed at her face.

She has seen Fareeha angry and agitated before. Usually after a long day out in the beating sun where their throats would become parched and the lives they saved little. In the hours after only half-succeeding (at best) in a mission. Times where if they had been a little faster, a little better, a little smarter, perhaps things could’ve panned out differently.

She hated the bandages most of all. Some of them self-inflicted physical reminders of the defeat.

The result of Fareeha punching a metal locker or another object from anger at her perceived incompetence. Hitting inanimate objects with enough force to break her skin and do a walk of shame to the medbay to get one of the physicians there to patch her up.

Later on in the night the woman would stew quietly, staring at her with hard, unreadable eyes thick with emotion and a bobbing throat that seemed to have so much to say. She would never say anything though. She never did. Instead, Fareeha would stroke at her locks and hold her with the gentlest of holds as they tried to get some much-needed rest. A hold that trembled and made Fareeha seem a bit smaller than usual.

She would hug her back fiercely, anchoring Fareeha with her grip, and pretend to not hear the small whimpers that would emit out of the woman’s throat.

Her gentle and sweet protector. Always so compassionate.

A woman who was as different as day was to the night to her alias. Her alias, that seemed to quickly be infesting Fareeha and assuming control. It made Angela sick with worry. As Al-Jassim, Fareeha was hostile – the bitter tones and thorn-covered words gushed out of her mouth without remorse. Without thought.

And they weren’t even helpful.

On the first day, Mccree had to literally smack Fareeha upside the head to get her back in the game. To fix the mood so they wouldn’t be barred from entering Vishkar premises before they even took one step in. On the second day, those low blows directed at Ms. Vaswani were needlessly cruel.

It was not Fareeha. It wasn’t.

She refused to believe it, even if the words seem to flow out of Fareeha as easy as the first breath of air came to a healthy newborn baby. Even if at times, Angela felt like she was not exactly acting anymore.

“Do you remember when we first started? In that old storage room?”

She turned to look at Fareeha, making sure the woman was paying attention. That the woman hadn’t actually fallen asleep. Fareeha was indeed, still awake, though unlike her and her wide-awake eyes the woman looked just about ready to fall asleep. With a grunt, Fareeha mirrored her actions and turned her body to face her. She blinked her half-lidded eyes. Crusted, with the beginnings of sleep.

“Whuh?” Garbled words follow after. She assumed that Fareeha only sort of heard her.

She cleared her throat and cleared up her words.

“That time in the storage room. Right after I met Mei.” She stressed. “You told me to reel you back. That we would always reel each other back. That if things ever got too out of hand and we lost our way, that’s what we do for each other. Always.”

Fareeha nodded, once. A small nod, like she was afraid to do anything more.

“Yeah.” She whispered just as demurely as her nod. “I remember.”

“So then let me, Fareehali. Let me reel you back, _please_.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Today I saw a part of you I didn’t even recognize and I don’t want to see what will happen next if you continue.”

Fareeha blinked and grumbled and groaned.

“What are you talking about, Angela? There’s nothing to reel me back from..” Fareeha said with a stifled yawn. “We can’t let Talon get away with it. We’re doing things for the good of the world.”

She furrowed her brows.

“Nothing to reel you back from? The man or the mission, Fareeha. What is more important?”

All sleep had evaporated from Fareeha’s eyes. She lifted up her head.

“The man? What man? Whose life is in danger if we go through with this?”

Angela curled further in her sheets.

“I’m talking about _you_.” She hissed, vision blurring. “You know when we first started, you were already so abhorred by the fact that we were lying to everyone doing espionage. That you didn’t like the methods. Now look at you – acting like you belong in an organization like Talon.”

A split second of anger rose in Fareeha at that remark. “Angela. That’s not fair-”

“Hurting people without cause. Looking like you kind of… _enjoyed_ it.” She scrunched her face at saying such a statement. Disgusted by it. “Did Ms. Vaswani deserve that cocktail of a response, filled with personal jabs and quarries? You’re supposed to be a protector.”

“Winston asked me-”

She sat up, taking the sheets with her to envelope her. Fareeha tried to sit up as well, but Angela stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. It was a petty thing, but for once Angela wanted the higher ground physically as well. She did not want to stare up at Fareeha as she talked her down.

“Winston asked you to make a _distraction_. While it is true, your character is an asshole, you were the one that made it go so far.” Fareeha flinched and her eyes fell away from Angela. Angela believes she saw shame. The emotion only fueled her. “There were plenty of ways to distract her with a grouchy temperament and _without_ twisting a knife in the form of hurtling insults at their character. ‘I knew there was something wrong with you’. Really?”

Fareeha said nothing in return. Her hands fisted the sheets. She kept staring at the sheets.

Angela scoffed. Tired and angry that Fareeha was doing nothing to protect herself. The stretching silence the strongest admission of guilt, and the ugly truth that maybe there were parts of her girlfriend she didn’t know about yet. Angela laid back down and turned to face the other way. Vehement to not look at Fareeha and to get some shut-eye for this damn mission that she had been roped to be a part of due to a stupid majority vote.

But not before saying one last thing.

“Grow up, Fareeha.”

\------------------------

Grown woman in her early thirties and the first thing she did after a fight with her girlfriend was to run to her mother. Or in this case, the next best thing, her mother’s old room at this base – untouched and covered with dust. She had went in there scrounging for a piece of home, for something to stop the rushed gasping and the panic from Angela’s flurry of words that hit too close to home.

_Grow up, Fareeha._

She thought she had grown.

She thought she had become better.

Fareeha now believes that maybe she was wrong.

After accidentally wrenching out a drawer and finding nothing yet again for her troubles, Fareeha let out a strangled cry and threw the empty drawer to the wall. It splintered into pieces upon impact. The sound was deafening in the silence of the night. Fareeha sniffled and pressed a hand to her lower jaw and scrunched her eyes to stop prickling tears from falling.

Nothing.

She had found nothing worthy after tearing this whole room up. No personal affects, nothing important. Nothing to hold onto. She looked around. The room was trashed.

Yet another thing she had messed up, needlessly.

With shoulders sunk, she sat down on the tossed bed, rumpling the sheets further with her slackened frame. Fareeha stared listlessly out the window, the slats pulled up and the moon in full view. She massaged her hands and wished she hadn’t run out without picking up her engineering ring. It would be nice to feel its weight. To turn it around her pinky digit and focus on the sensation of the nicked grooves. The marks of her progress.

Anything to distract her from the uncomfortable pit in her stomach.

Angela was right. She was right.

All of her accusations were right.

How could she explain herself, when there was nothing she could refute?

Fareeha flopped down on the bed, kicking up dust as she sprawled like a starfish. Might as well get comfortable, she was probably going to sleep in this room for the night. She draped an arm over her eyes and let her sight be dipped in darkness. She expelled a long-reaching sigh that bounced off the walls.

Falling back to old habits.

That was what had happened.

She may have spoken big game about her dreams to be a protector and the hard road she travelled to get to where she is, but the truth of the matter was that being a protector was a dirtier job than anyone would’ve imagined. Uglier than her younger, idyllic self could’ve possibly fathomed.

At the end of the day, she hadn’t gotten to where she did with being nice.

She hadn’t rose in the military ranks from an exercise in compassion and upkeep of moral ideals. The military gave points and recognition for missions completed, and none of them needed a person who could display mercy or kindness.

No, she had gotten to where she was by being the likes of Al-Jassim.

She does not like to think back on those days.

Her ambitious streak led her to do things that made her no different from a monster. Abandon screaming comrades, letting them burn to their deaths as a greater mission apparently took precedent. Executing her missions without question – not once stopping to think about why someone was targeted or for what cause she was doing something. Willingly engaging in just about anything and everything for the sake of her country. Heinous actions that kept her up at night, as much as she justified them in her head. A large portion of her medals and trophies a reminder of the ugly things she did.

And she had done it all.

Nobody rose up the ranks like she did without staining their hands full of blood and Omnic parts.

When she retired from the army, she erroneously believed she had left it all.

But she was wrong. The extent of the actions she has taken for this mission has blown that image to smithereens. A sick part of her had enjoyed tearing Ms. Vaswani down. She had reverted so quickly back to the woman she was. The woman that she kept being for a good while even after joining Helix.

That insecure and angry woman with a chip on her shoulder and too much too prove.

The one who reveled in the enemy’s pain, because to sympathize with them would mean an inability to follow through with what she had to do.

All Winston had asked of her was to be a distraction, and like Angela had said, she herself had taken it three paces too far. She had gotten into the woman’s personal space and spit in her name. Needling her with insults and the kind of dismissive flare she used to even put down her own comrades with.

Ms. Vaswani had unwittingly brought back the worst of her.

The woman was brilliant, both in character and skill. Fareeha was forced to feel awe-struck from walking up and down those blue stairs that suspended in the air like a dream made real. Sucked into her role, she couldn’t deny a rush of envy at not being her. She also felt like she was wholly inadequate. And it was all Ms. Vaswani’s fault.

She saw red.

And the calm veneer Ms. Vaswani had did not help. It had curdled Fareeha’s blood as she channeled the pent-up aggression of her old self. Further unexpected jealousy rising in her heart at Ms. Vaswani’s mature reactions to her slights.

Her insults and tirade quickly grew worse, spurred by the insecurities of her old self.

An old self she had channeled far too well.

She had completely forgotten the woman she was now. The woman she was supposed to be.

And it made Fareeha wonder, if she had ever grown up at all.

\------------------------

Mornings were usually the best part of Fareeha’s day.

She was a morning person.

Today however, she was not. Last night’s event was fresh in her memory, and in Angela’s. The woman’s lack of response to her entrance this morning back to their shared quarters all the indication she needed.

The room was tense, swathed in unspoken words.

Usually Angela was not a morning person. In combination with the lack of sleep they both likely received last night and the culmination of the lack of resolution and the things they were about to do today, Angela’s mood was now probably at an all-time low. Fareeha stared from where she stood, all dressed, at Angela and her sitting frame. The woman was packing the last of her make-up, staunchly avoiding her gaze in the reflection of the dresser’s mirror. Fareeha pursed her lips.

Right now would be a terrible time to make a wrong step.

With a deep breath, she started to make her way to Angela, heart thudding in gut-churning fear.

She hoped she wasn’t going too.

“Angela.” She began, softer and with less resolve than she intended.

Angela failed to turn. She squirmed and resisted the urge to run, to back off from this given opportunity by her girlfriend to not do this right now. Fareeha wiped the sweat of her hands on her pants and hoped her words would come out right.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been channeling the worst parts of me I thought I had left.” She sat on the edge of the cushion seat behind Angela and risked to rest her forehead on top of Angela’s shoulder, murmuring straight into the fabric of her blazer. “We have some things we have to talk about later when we have time, I know. All I want to say right now is that I’m sorry I disappointed you and I will try and make it better.”

Angela did not respond.

Fareeha could not lift her head from the safety of Angela’s back. Fear seizing her heart that she had somehow messed it all. That she would see something that would terrify her if she looked into Angela’s gaze. To be graced with nothing but a look of someone who has given up.

“I know, I know. Words are meaningless but-” She continued. Fareeha licked her lips – “But you’ll see. I’ll back it up with action.”

She garnered yet again, no response. She sighed. She pressed a firm kiss to her shoulder blade.

“I love you.” She murmured with a pathetic crack in her voice. Then rose up, running a hand through her hair and scratching at the scalp. “…I’ll uh… I’ll go warm up the car first. Take your time.”

She turned to walk out the room, only to be stopped by a grab on her wrist. Her breath hitched, and she forced her beating heart to slow. Apprehensively she turned and faced Angela. Angela, who still had a cool expression on her face. She wasn’t sure what it meant. Her throat bobbed and she sent the strongest smile she could, hoping none of her felt fear would show.

“Yes?”

Whatever her expression may be, it made Angela’s lips pursed further. Her stomach flipped. She stopped breathing for a moment as one of Angela rose up and one of her hands reached out to curl behind her neck. She went rigid, frozen in time. Angela took a step closer and leaned up. Their lips made contact.

Fareeha dared not react.

Angela retreated then stared at her pensively once more. Something in her expression must have compelled Angela again, as she came tilted her head up again and gave her another kiss. Stronger this time.

Fareeha still dared not to move.

This time, when Angela retreated, the hand that rested behind her neck did as well. It travelled to join her other as she popped her collar and pulled her necktie loose again.

“Sloppy work.” Angela said in lieu of a proper explanation. “I will do it for you.”

Fareeha could only make a guttural noise that she herself wasn’t sure was agreement or just to respond. Angela nodded in approval nonetheless and took it as a go ahead. She started to retie her necktie. Fareeha’s mouth decided to work once more.

“Angela…?” Her voice was a whisper and staggering. Laden with tempered hope. “… Aren’t you supposed to be mad at me?”

Angela continued to work on her necktie, eyes not once flickering off from her handiwork.

“I am mad at you. Yes.” Angela replied succinctly as she finished and pulled at the necktie to tighten it around her neck. “We have much to talk about later about your actions.”

She nodded stiltedly and wet her lips again.

... That didn’t explain the kisses.

Angela tucked the necktie back into her vest, and popped her collar back down. Her eyes then flickered up, met Fareeha’s, and Fareeha is jarred by the flicker of hurt anger in her eyes.

“I am so mad at you, but I _love_ you nonetheless, Fareeha.”

Angela’s hands reached up, both this time. They cradled her face, palms at the jawline, fingers in her hair. Careful not to smear her makeup, though as tender of a touch as can be.

“So don’t you ever stare at me with such sad eyes, looking as if I’ll leave you.”

Fareeha swallowed tightly and nodded.

“… Okay.”

“I love you, okay? I love you, Fareeha Amari.” Angela affirmed twice. “And I’m not leaving you.”

Fareeha stifled a hitch and nodded again.

“… I love you too.” She replied with yet another crack in her voice.

And as Angela’s fingers raked at her hair, her palms a comforting warmth on the sides of her jawline, Fareeha closed her eyes, overlaid her hands over Angela’s, and made a silent promise to be better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably their first real fight.  
> And to all of you who celebrate thanksgiving. I hope yall stuffed yourselves silly (I did). To anyone who did Black Friday. I hope you’re okay. I know how hectic it can get. (Upcoming cyber Monday is far safer)


	9. Prepping

A distinct change took over Ms. Vaswani whenever she spoke of her passions. She glowed, eyes afire with flickers of delight and resting frown burned clean away, a serene smile left in its wake. Her stream of thoughts came out steady, a gentle and succinct river of words and sentences weaving one after another without rest into paragraphs of ideas, blending together as naturally as joining river streams.

She was enthralling at times like this, Ms. Vaswani – or at least, she usually was (or had been yesterday). Angela picked at the wooden table before her, aggravating a small chip in the surface with her fingernail. Right now however, not a word she spoke touched at Angela’s mind or soul. Every idea she lovingly crafted fell onto deaf ears, muted and warbled and static passing through Angela’s skull at best. Not even the impeccable hard-light constructions Ms. Vaswani made for visual demonstrations could sway Angela. Not this time around. Her heart was far too distracted and her mind was elsewhere.

Angela exhaled long and slow, shoulders falling in time and heart sinking much the same, the incident last night painfully clear in her mind’s memories. She sighed once more, her breath dragging and sullen. Though she stood firm by her convictions (she still believed this a stupid plan – nothing could convince her otherwise) she deeply regretted the methods she employed to prove herself right.

She started to haphazardly pull at the fraying strands of wood she had been fiddling with, and without much effort she managed to rip a wood shard clean off with her incessant niggling. Angela hastily flicked it away and the shard – barely a flake – fell like a feather to the ground, in the slowest oscillations. Her lips thinned further as it landed.

Littering and (she looked back at the small chip which, yes, had indeed enlarged from her actions) further destruction of property. How unbecoming of her.

Then again, she’d been rather unbecoming as of late. She had escalated the situation needlessly last night, there was no excuse for the flurry of heated statements that came out of her mouth. Things that certainly would wound and reopen old wounds, scathingly delivered to sting, and in the midst of her red haze of righteous fury, a sick part of her felt satisfaction at watching Fareeha flinch.

…

And Fareeha had taken it all without question. Stubbornly hard on herself, Fareeha let her barbed words cut her without a single flinch, raising no shield to protect herself. Any mumbling of protest that did come was purposely half-hearted and allowed to be easily drowned out. For the most part Fareeha was silent, stoically bearing it all like the good soldier she used to be –

Until it got too much.

Until the words slinging out her mouth dug to deep and clawed too hard at a closed box of problems and insecurities that Fareeha wasn’t ready to quite deal with yet. She ran when Angela pierced through, ran right out that room like hellhounds were nipping at her feet… And Angela didn’t follow, stewing in her own feelings of frustration, she didn’t follow – she failed to follow, and now she was stuck an uncomfortable roiling in her gut turning her stomach since this morning when Fareeha shuffled back into their private quarters.

Angela worked her jaw and snuck a sidelong glance to Fareeha, who stood at the other side of the room, picking apart yet another piece of tech with Yudav hovering closely by. This morning, when Angela looked into her gorgeous face (even in the thick of anger, she was always gorgeous to Angela – spite could never take that away), her heart broke. The tired lines, the forced smile that sagged at the corners and her eyes – normally so sharp and vibrant – dulled and drooping at the corners. Nothing about last night felt worth it in that instant.

Angela gritted her jaw harder, feelings of guilt and shame crawling up her throat once more as she recounted those events. She never seen anything sadder, so fraught with insecurity and apprehensive fear… To know that she was the cause of that–

“You look unwell, doctor. Is everything alright?”

Angela shifted her gaze back up front. Ms. Vaswani was standing by the whiteboard, hands suspended in the air, hard-light construct hovering perfectly still between her splayed out palms, staring. Angela only stares back, a beat passes, and Ms. Vaswani decides to move. With a flick of her hand, the architectural form of hard-light she conjured filtered out of existence and she glided over to sit down in a chair beside her.

“Doctor?” She repeated, softly, gaze turning slightly pensive. An undercurrent of worry in her otherwise imperious gaze, a reserved sort of concern as she patiently waited for Angela to divulge what was bothering her.

The genuine display of compassion only made Angela grimace, remembering where she was, what she was doing, and how hypocritical she was being. Who was she to judge Fareeha? To be so righteous? For all she said and stated, here she was, still doing the mission. How could she expect better when she was no better? Falling into line for things decided by majority votes and hierarchical structures, even when she was so vehemently against it.

Angela chuckled feebly, and smiled tightly at Ms. Vaswani.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.” She said softly, her tone filled with a clear exhaustion neither forced nor feigned. “I’m simply a little tired. Didn’t get as much sleep as I hoped too last night.”

If Ms. Vaswani had any words to assuage her in response, it never came to be. Whatever she had in her mind never came to fruition as her attention lifted to something beyond Angela, her moving interest clear from the furrow of her brows and the way her line of sight went from her face to past her shoulder.

Angela turned, curious as to what may have stolen Ms. Vaswani’s attention. She blinked and her brows rose high. Coming at them with gigantically long strides was Fareeha, marching right at them with eyes wide and rushed, short breaths that heaved her chest. Angela flinched as Fareeha practically tumbled onto the table upon arrival, her descent only stopped by her arms whipping out in the nick of time to land on the hard surface of the table, with enough force that the table slid a good two or three inches from impact.

“B-bag.” Fareeha rasped and fumbled to a hasty bend to snatch the medical case, before Angela could properly answer the woman.

Fareeha’s eyes appeared chillingly unfocused, darting here and there, and simultaneously looking neither here nor there as she scrambled back up straight with the bag in tow. The display would alarm Angela if she hadn’t been briefed beforehand about this premeditated course of action – been informed that it was all an act. Yet despite the knowing the truth, seeing Fareeha appear so off-kilter made her stomach queasy nonetheless. She reached a tentative hand out.

“Excuse me, may I-”

Fareeha does not wait for her to finish speaking, quickly straggling off to the private bathroom, roughly sidelining a concerned Yudav out the way. Angela cringed. Given the way his hands had been out, he most likely was not trying to block her and probably only wanted to lend a helping hand to support her unsteady frame, if anything. That man truly had poor luck.

Fareeha hit the side of the door as she tried to step through. An outcry of Arabic left her lips, a shaky swear of frustration and rubbing at her bruised shoulder, Fareeha scuttled in and slammed the door shut behind her. Silence filled the room and the sudden quiet kicked her into high gear. Angela rose from her seat in a rush, remembering that Fareeha had just taken her medical suitcase for what seemed to be medical emergency. It would be weird for her not to offer help.

She beelined for the bathroom.

“Woah now. Easy there darling.” Mccree took a step to block her view of the door completely. “You packed her medication, right?”

“Yes. But-”

“Then don’t you worry your pretty little head.” He drawled as he ruffled her hair, messing up her tight ponytail. “She’ll be fine.”

“But what if-”

“Dr. Mueller.” She pretended to flinch at the use of her proper title. Mccree was no longer smiling and the hand on her head went deadly still. “You know as well as I do that Al doesn’t appreciate bein’ fussed on over.”

They stared each other down for what felt like a minute or two. Then Angela crumbled, as what was expected of her. She relented with a release of an appropriate huff and Mccree smiled in victory and ruffled her head again for a moment, before she smacked the offending hand away. With heels clicking loudly in defiance and objection, Angela stalked back to the table and sat back beside Ms. Vaswani. She shook her head and muttered and mumbled critically about the decision, all in all, in remarkably feigned anger.

\---------------------------

Fareeha wanted desperately to splash cold water on her face. She was filled with the strongest urge to twist the faucet and let the water run and subsequently dunk her head in a fully filled basin. To feel cold rivulets run down her face when she resurfaced, droplets dribbling off her chin and back into the sink. Let the shock of low temperatures vanquish the hammering of her chest and the trembling of her fingertips. The only thing stopping her was the reminder that her face was caked with concealing makeup.

Non-waterproof makeup. Shit.

She resorted to bouncing on her feet instead, shadow-boxing the thin air. Nothing too rigorous (sweating wasn’t ideal either), but enough to allow her to let off some steam. To allow her to feel in control once more and rid herself of the excess energy – to give a proper reason (justification) for the pounding in her chest.

Fareeha cursed softly under her breath, slightly irritated. Acting or not, pretending to have a PTSD breakdown certainly took a toll on her. She’s been in battle herself and like anyone who has been in the throes of battle, she a fair share of emotional scars to accompany the physical ones too. The only silver lining was that her episodes were never too bad when they happened. Nothing like Hassan, where the still quiet did unpleasant things to him - the reason why she never was too hard on him when he hummed jolly tunes under his breath while on the job. Or like Bilal who consistently sat hunched over at mealtimes, on the ready to spring under the table at any moment to avoid sudden gunfire or a lobbed grenade, a nervous tick in his otherwise stoic demeanor and highborn table manners.

And nothing as bad as her own mother.

The rare times Ana came home, she’d often slide under the covers next to Fareeha wordlessly, body quivering despite how the warm temperature of her room. Fareeha remembered staying silent, pretending to be asleep as her mother held her tight and gave her the occasional kiss to the crown of her head. Delivering affectionate and light touches, combing through her locks and prodding her gently, like she was making sure that Fareeha was there, safe in her arms and she herself was not out there, on the battlefield. At least not that day.

She was 'lucky' she supposed, in that regard, to be able to walk away with pretty standard residual ticks of a former frontline soldier. The way her gaze instinctually moved to note the entries and exits of a room, the preference of sleeping with a weapon nearby, to flinching from the sound of a sudden car alarm and experiencing the occasional night terror. She hated those, the waking up part most of all, being drenched in cold sweat with her heart hammering and fully disoriented – forgetting for a brief moment where she was.

This time she may have been faking it, but the emotions she drew out for the act…

She did one final jab and in a bout of adrenaline, leapt into the air and performed a roundhouse kick. She landed gently on the ground, into a crouch, to quiet her landing. Fareeha breathed in and out deeply and stood up. Good, she could pretend the racing of her heart was from the light exercise.

In the back of her mind she knew this wasn’t the healthiest thing, this denial of her problem. Eventually, she would take up Angela’s advice to perhaps see a psychiatrist, but for now she justified her actions from the fact that they were on a time crunch - and the fact that there were no psychiatrists at hand in this bathroom, anyways. Fareeha opened Angela’s medical suitcase and pulled out a small feeder cam and the translocator pieces packed in between all medical junk she had brought as well. After a quick assembly of the teleportation device her eyes tracked around the room.

Where was that vent?

A faint smile crossed her face. There.

\---------------------------

“I did not realize Ms. Al-Jassim suffers from trauma.” The offhand comment made her gaze lift. Ms. Vaswani was neither facing her nor looking at her direction, full attention on the bathroom door, staring at it with a new kind of light in her eyes. “Her aversion to new technology makes more sense now.” Ms. Vaswani muttered, mostly to herself.

Angela cocked her head. “It does?”

Her small inquiry shifted Ms. Vaswani’s attention from the door to her. She nodded, once. “Yes. Although her personality is lacking, she is a capable engineer.” Ms. Vaswani folded her hands in front of her. “Anyone able to modify Vishkar tech – even the older models - must be quite brilliant in some capacity.”

“ _You_ think she’s brilliant?” She sputtered out, not believing her ears.

Ms. Vaswani lifted an eyebrow. “…You believe my assessment to be wrong?”

“No, I think it’s right. It’s just- I’m just surprised to hear you compliment her.”

Considering what happened yesterday, she was surprised that Ms. Vaswani would show any level of concern or mindfulness towards Fareeha. She thought that bridge burnt and truthfully told, she wouldn’t have blamed her in the slightest.

“My opinions on a person have no bearing on truth.” Ms. Vaswani explained matter-of-factly. “Credit must be given where credit is due, and for all of Ms. Al-Jassim’s faults, being a failure of an engineer is not one of them.”

Angela blinked and rested her head in her hand. It was an incredibly mature mindset for someone under thirty and made it almost hard to believe that she’s only two years older than Lena (the thought was shocking if she dwelled on it too long). Ms. Vaswani seemed lightyears ahead of her bubbly friend. In a way, her maturity and brilliance reminded Angela a little bit of herself, a thought that makes her slightly melancholic. She didn’t grow up so fast due to happy circumstances, and she guessed the same was true for Ms. Vaswani.

“She is brilliant, which is why her aversion to new technology is puzzling at first glance. Someone who logistically understands technology at her level shouldn’t be maintaining any illusions that old technology is better than new. Thus, the only possible explanation for her distrust of clear advancement must come from some personal vendetta not grounded in logic. A trauma of some sort.” Ms. Vaswani hesitated for the first time. “…Was she in close quarters with any omnics on the other side of the war?”

“…Yes.” Angela lied, slowly through her teeth. A half lie – it was technically true for Fareeha’s alias. “Her old village was completely ravaged by omnics during the crisis. She didn’t get out of it completely unscathed.”

“Ah. The reason for the hearing aid, I presume. I noticed the scars that ran up her earlobe and into the canal.” Ms. Vaswani said. “And this attack – perhaps the reason for her loss of legs as well?”

“Yes. That’s correct.” Angela affirmed.

A wistful smile then took over Angela’s face, one not entirely an act. The tragic backstory that Fareeha’s alias held may be fabricated, but from her travels Angela has met plenty of people where such a story was not a tale grounded in fiction. She has met with many people who had normality ripped from them in an instant, losing limbs and large portions of their life due to the chaos of the omnic crises. Good folk who had treasured connections severed by an unforgiving war no one was quite sure why it started in the first place. The sob story they made up for Fareeha was in reality, disgustingly all-too-common.

“She’s lucky Mr. Jacobs found her.” Angela murmured. “That’s why she’s so loyal to him.”

The mood dampens at that, Angela can feel it from the thickness the air has adopted. She discreetly glanced over at Ms. Vaswani. The woman was silent, staring into the wall with furrowed brows, thinking. After a long stretch, she finally speaks.

“We are more similar than I thought.” Her voice is a near whisper, and Angela almost does not catch it. “Though I do not stay with Vishkar solely from debt. Vishkar saved me from the slums.” She explained as her lips curled in disgust. “Dirty, messy, full of crawlspaces and dark alleyways primed for criminal activity. Who would want to live in a place like that when they could have better? When better was an option presented, and offered so freely?” Something flickered in her eyes, a discord of some kind. “I do not get it.”

Angela became tight-lipped, wondering if Ms. Vaswani was possibly thinking about Rio.

“I understand that Vishkar has been delving into other areas of specialty,” She cautiously interjected, knowing she might be wading into dangerous waters. “However, Vishkar is still primarily a real estate company. So pardon my skepticism, but isn’t the dream to fix the world rather ambitious?”

She expected Ms. Vaswani to frown or glare at her, maybe even deliver a flat stare at her filled with annoyance. To her surprise, the corners of her lips twitched up instead into a faint smile.

“I have been asked that before.” Ms. Vaswani murmured not unkindly (though, not happily either). Her voice was instead a strange mix of resignation and wry understanding, like she understood this was a question she could never run from and found a bit of humor at the inevitably of being asked such a thing yet again. “The true enemy of humanity is disorder, Dr. Mueller, for order brings harmony. With our city planning, we bring order. We bring a better world into being, even if people do not know it at the time...”

Again, that flicker of distaste marred Ms. Vaswani’s face, and a little bit of something else. Something sad.

“You do not think freedom has its benefits?” Angela softly countered, honestly intrigued as to what would be her answer. The clash between freedom and absolute order was what snowballed the mess in Rio to that point that a revolution occurred.

Ms. Vaswani sighed.

“The benefits of freedom.” She murmured sullenly. Ms. Vaswani shook her head. “True freedom is too much of a cost, Dr. Mueller. When people are completely free to do as they please, things do not run efficiently. The strong overpower the weak. The number of injustices not worked upon in the world increases. Corruption rings the doorbell of every door step. People do not know what to do in a lawless place where true freedom exists. There is a reason that people want government – a properly working government – to a certain degree. With restriction comes _better_ freedom. Freedom without fear of what others will do with their freedom.”

Angela kept silent, afraid to break the tangent Ms. Vaswani was on.

“Freedom is-” Ms. Vaswani paused for a brief moment- "A convenient illusion. When people perceive freedom not to be in their grasp, civil unrest occurs. It is good to have a perception of total freedom, though nobody truly wants that. People want to be happy, to have the freedom to be happy, and that all begins with having order. An orderly life will not solve everything, we at Vishkar understand that of course, but it is a start to be able to center on one’s true goals. To be able to strive for things they are actually passionate about without worry.”

“You really believe that is Vishkar’s goal?”

As downtrodden as Ms. Vaswani appeared from the conversation, the smile that graced her features then was sweet. “I know so, Dr. Mueller.” Confidence brimmed in her tone. “We here at Vishkar is simply trying to help that become a reality. To make a better world, to weave a better world into being. We know it is possible, so why not help it happen?”

She made a geometric form of the world and floated it between them.

“The world is a dream, not yet realized.”

\-------------------------------

The plain coveralls made her feel like she’s going back to her first job – one that she chose herself, anyways (she wasn’t counting the many months she helped her father as a forest ranger helper in her teenage years). Only instead of wrenches and screws and armed with a trusty toolbox with nicked sides and the smell of gasoline and broken cars around her, she was given a janitorial cart and the promise of graduating from espionage to literal breaking and entering.

Fixing on her cap, Fareeha grumbled as her stomach flipped with last second doubts.

“I can do it instead, yknow?”

She doesn’t bother to look at Jesse as she fiddled to roll up her sleeves. The truth is that there was no way Jesse could do it, the man made too much of an impression as his alias. He’d be spotted in an instant. Jesse shrugged as he chewed on pop chips that he shoveled in his mouth by the handful, not insulted by her lack of response, understanding the meaning behind it as clear as day.

“We could ask someone else to go. Is that a better idea?”

She gave him a sidelong glance.

“Jesse. We both know I’m the best option.”

Right skin tone and knows the language. Though Winston may have blueprints of the place, she’s actually been in the premises. They couldn’t send a local agent to take over in this arena, not unless they had sent them in the first place – it was far too dangerous to switch them in right now.

In hindsight, perhaps they should have gone with such an option in the first place (it would alleviate her guilt, if nothing else). It was too late though and with a sigh, she placed on the disposable filter mask. With most of her face now obscured and the baggy overalls she wore, she looked like any regular Joe. It would be a spectacular feat for anyone to think she wasn’t just any other janitor.

“Lena’s chipper.” Jesse mused. “Though I ain’t surprised. The woman’s finally getting in on all the action.”

Chipper? More like utterly thrilled. Lena was jumping, jittery and excited as Winston fitted her with a subtle chronal accelerator. The modification was slimmer than her usual clunky fare, thin enough to hide beneath the janitorial uniform she supposed to wear as well and covered with cloth to cover its signature glow. Fareeha sighed sullenly at Lena’s apparent energy, wishing she could muster half the same amount of excitement.

“Pharah.” Her eyes snapped towards Winston, who was looking her up and down. “Are you ready?”

She looked away to the teleporter fashioned at the edge of the room and then back at Winston.

“Yes. Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have been moving quite slow, I realized (and I’m talking about the plot – not my update abilities, tho that is true too). Things are going to move faster now, because it’s just going too dang slow. Also, I’m trying a little bit of a new style writing style (I think I am anyways, but maybe it isn’t noticeable >.>). Also, I hope it is progression and not regression. Let me know. :)
> 
> Update in 2 weeks because I got a oneshot idea that’s going to be chugged out next week (it was half done since forever ago, and then the pmzine happened and I dropped everything to focus on that. Sorry >~<).


	10. Breaking and Entering

There was a time when Fareeha wanted to be a sniper. To scope an area from miles away, lying flat on her stomach, a finger on the trigger. Nobody was too surprised, given who her mother was and how good she was at what she did. Fareeha's true love affair with the art however – moving past simple toying of the idea – budded ironically enough from initiative by her mother than any grand tale of her feats.

The biggest challenger to the life she sought had unknowingly sealed the deal on one “bring your child to work” day. Ana hadn’t realized the small little game she played, done because she thought it’d be funny to witness her daughter wearing mufflers two sizes too big and protective glasses that threatened to slip off her nub of a nose every time she exhaled, would create rifts between them as it set Fareeha on a course she never wanted her child to walk. That perhaps considering how she never actually wanted Fareeha on the field, letting her try out her sniper and help her get a bullseye on a target 300m away was not the best of ideas. But what was done was done. That door had been unlocked. Ana had brought her out onto the range and Fareeha had fallen in love.

If it wasn’t for the picture that Fareeha had stored in one of her photo albums, a memento of that day snapped by Gabriel (because really, her mother? Teaching _her_ how to snipe?), Fareeha may have written off that faded memory as a fevered dream she once had and simply started to believe down the road. It was there though, between pictures of her and Jesse and Gabriel, a snapshot of her and her mother and her mother’s trusted sniper rifle. A sweet memory now tainted with a bittersweet aftertaste, colored a mottled grey by the many fights that ensued years after this innocuous beginning.

Fights for naught in one way. She never became a sniper in the end (and maybe her mother took solace in at least that one small victory). Sniping was a first love, a childish love. An infatuation and a superficial fascination than anything more; one she grew bored of and dropped once she learnt the art of sniping could also be called the art of waiting.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t a patient woman. In fact, Fareeha was good – very good – at biding her time. Deer hunting with her father and fishing competitions with Reinhardt she had once in a blue moon honed this trait early in her. The days she spent years later in trenches and recuperating from the loss of her legs only cemented it. Patience was a virtue she had plenty of.

But that didn’t mean she necessarily enjoyed it.

There was a reason after all for why she moved on to the next big thing. In the end, whether crawling closer to the grazing deer, making fishing lines dance with flicks of her wrist, or mumbling lyrics when she sat slouched in a damp trench with a lit cigarette between her teeth, Fareeha could never sit quite still. Be it the frontlines or the clear sky, the daredevil in her sought an adrenaline rush and the fiery spirit that raged in her wouldn’t allow her to stay meters away.

Which was why this was difficult. This- This- _waiting_ game they were playing.

Fareeha paced back and forth, crossed arms crossing tighter with each passing millisecond. The monitor frustratingly continued to stay a black mirror with every tick of time, reflecting nothing except her own grim expression back. The well of anxiety pooling in her stomach kept filling.

Lena had gone into the teleporter with all the tech presumably working, from her chronal accelerator to the hidden camera feed in her janitor’s hat. She had went through the portal because the feeder cam that Fareeha installed in the grate hours earlier had shown the coast was clear. She had gone in there a good twenty seconds ago, and yet she wasn’t showing up on the other side. That damn monitor was _still_ dead and Fareeha was starting to panic that something had gone wrong. The only reason she hadn’t entered a state of complete frenzy was that Winston had yet to look more than mildly anxious.

Then, a crackle on the monitor. A few split seconds sparks and a fuzzy, grainy picture of grates came to view. “Kssht. I’m in.” Lena said through the mic and bursting into a few tickled giggles at the end of her sentence.

It was a stupid joke. A quote that came decades before either of them was born. An outdated and outmoded hacker joke. It was a stupid joke, but Fareeha barked a laugh harder than what was called for. Endorphins and sweet sheer relief fueling her reaction for Lena was safe, safe and sound and on the other side in one piece. Not lost in time and space and not crushed on the other side from materializing the wrong way round. And she, Fareeha fixed the hat on her head, would soon join her. She watched as Lena unscrewed the grates of the vent to slip into bathroom. As soon as Lena took the translocator out and into the open for her larger frame simply wouldn’t let her appear on the other side within those small, small vents.

_____________________

“Shit!”

She should’ve known there was no reason to leap through a teleporter. Lena didn’t do it, after all. From a flash of blue to seconds of nothing and then brilliant purple light, Fareeha’s initial excitement that it worked (that she too “was in”) morphed into alarm as she saw Lena’s panicked expression coming at her at a rapid rate.

Or rather, she at her.

A startled half-muffled cry escaped Lena as Fareeha, flinging from the force of her leap from the other side, barreled straight into her gangly frame and sent them both crashing. Two unceremonious lumps on the hard bathroom floor, shin hitting shin, limbs over limbs, and the face of chronal accelerator pressed jabbing into both of their stomachs. Flushed faced, Fareeha stammered apologies as pulled herself off Lena. The tips of her ears burned further as Jesse’s raucous laughter bounced from the earpiece in shocking clarity.

“What a start to the mission. First time through a portal?” Lena asked as she pulled down her mask with a finger to show a toothy grin (to assuage her guilt most likely).

“…Mm.”

“So your first time is with me, eh?”

“Lena.” She said flatly, not finding the humor in the situation like she did, and then moved closer to inspect the woman for any bruising. It was a nasty fall and though she doesn’t think herself heavy, Lena was so small in comparison to her. Her eyes travelled carefully up and down the length of her body. From her ankles to calves, stomach, and beyond-

“Hey now, my eyes are up here.”

Like it was a command Fareeha’s eyes snapped up to meet hers, lips pursing as she saw the cheeky grin Lena adorned. She took another step closer and stared at her gravely, not biting at the dangling bait.

“… Are you sure you’re okay? I came at you quite strong.”

“That’s alright, love. Most people do when it comes to me. I’m quite popular.”

Fareeha’s mouth thinned. Lena was fully committed to not taking her concern seriously. That much became clear when Lena then waggled her brows in an exaggerated fashion. Fareeha eyes narrowed and she grumbled under her breath. Well if nothing else, it seemed that Lena was fine enough for her mouth to still work.

“I don’t mind that initiative though. Or at least I’m kinda used to it, if you get what I mean.”

Fareeha placed a palm to her face and groaned. It was a never ending onslaught. Peering through her fingers Fareeha saw that Lena’s smile had only grown brighter. She sighed again and lifted her hand off her face to semi-pat and semi-ruffle Lena’s messy locks.

“Enough. We have a job to do.”

As if to underline her point that they were on the clock, the janitor cart chose that moment to materialize into reality from the translocator. Fareeha turned, picked up the translocator, slid it neatly into one of the compartments of the cart and then pointed at the larger hamper with a finger.

“Go on. In you go.”

Lena clicked her tongue as she obediently hoisted herself up to get into the hamper.

“Perfect. Right where I belong.” She joked as she nestled herself in-between the nonsensical items that they had prepared earlier. They weren’t going to force Lena to put herself into a trash hamper with actual trash. Winston could never be so cruel (though she did snort when Mccree grumbled that Gabriel had apparently done just that once to him). “It might have room for two. Care to join?”

Fareeha threw a rag over Lena’s head to cover her fully and shook her head, chuckling slightly.

“ _Enough._ We have a job to do.” She said and started to walk through the compound, pushing Lena around in her new ride. Fareeha walked sluggish and slow, the normal gait of a tired and overworked and surely underpaid janitor. It wasn’t especially difficult to do. She wanted to take her time, for Vishkar felt… different at night. The place wasn’t loud per say during the working hours, but at night the antiseptic and artificial quality of the place doubled. It became quiet. Real quiet. An almost unnatural quiet. Fareeha doesn’t think she can even hear the faint buzz of an air conditioner. It was weird, as strange as how bright the lights were despite the late hour; most places would shut off unused areas or at least dimmed the lights.

(HSI with all its funding had did that to an excessive degree. Fareeha cannot count the amount of times she had to switch on lights to places she had _just_ been, because the timer to turn down the lights if no movement was detected was far too short after midnight)

There was also the other problem. That the only personnel that didn’t seem to go down in numbers were the men, women and omnics armed with hard light weaponry strapped to their belts. All walking with eerily soft steps, a jarring departure from the hard and steady thumps she’s accustomed to hearing from security. Regardless of the way they walked however, they were still trained personnel and Fareeha did her best to not forget that. She tilted her head down and focused on the cart as she pushed. Better keep to herself and draw as little attention as possible. Her earpiece crackled.

“ _Your heartrate is a little high. Is everything alright?”_

It took her a moment to answer.

“Just a bit on high alert.” She admitted quietly, levelling her register so no one could see her lips movements through the mask. “It’s different, being an invited spy and breaking and entering. Feels different. Not in a good way.”

“ _Deep breaths then! You’re doing great. And remember, we’re here as well._ ” Winston said.

Fareeha licked her lips once more, careful to keep her tone even and remembering in the back of her mind that this was the public channel _._

“Right. Thanks Winston.” A beat passed. Her mind was stuck on the first voice. Fareeha spoke once more. “Angela. You’re watching.”

“I am.”

“I see.” She said and said nothing more. She wasn’t sure what else to say.

She tipped her head at a few passing guards. Angela was in the control room. Angela, who she had not seen ten feet near the control room since they started this part of the mission. The woman was adamant in showcasing her continual disagreement with the plan and had resorted to passively protest it by simply not being in the room.

“Y’know you don’t have to watch.” The words came out before Fareeha realized they had been on her mind. She winced internally. Of _all_ the things to say. “It’s nice that you are though. I like it- Please stay.”

Angela chuckled softly and a bit warbled, a bit wistful.

“Silly girl. Silly, silly girl.” Angela whispered and Fareeha can imagine that she was shaking her head in that fond way she did when Fareeha did anything she found remotely endearing. Fareeha imagined she was staring at the screen with that certain look in her eyes (the one that was for her and _only_ for her). “Of course I’ll stay. You’re out there and I want to be on your side even when I’m not. So as always-”

“Yes?” She cut her off, eager to hear _it._ Another laugh tickled her eardrums and Fareeha could picture the smile Angela had to be donning.

“-I’ll be watching over you. As always.”

_____________________

Angela sighed as she rested her head in propped hands and squinted at the screen. She was accustomed to being in waiting rooms of some sort, ready to spring from idleness straight into action at the drop of the hat (control rooms weren’t exactly waiting rooms, but she felt they functioned the same way right now). It came with the job – even before she became a certified combat medic for Overwatch. Such was the life of a medical surgeon, especially one who lent a hand to those who needed it most, whoever they were.

Rich or poor. Friend or foe.

The latter often became a matter of contention between her and the newspapers of the world. She’d be damned though before she did anything but her best to save anyone who landed on her operating table. The law was not hers to throw down. She did not become a surgeon to _choose_ who got to live and who got to die. She became one to save lives. She joined Overwatch to do more of that.

 _This_ she did not. She didn’t sign up for this.

…

But Fareeha did in a way she supposed. Still, she does not like Fareeha going in there, does not like the fact that she’s in here, does not like it at all, and wished above _all_ that she vetoed this mission harder. Those security personnel looked like they meant business.

She turned to the side.

“Mccree, do you-…” Her brows furrowed. “Are you- Are you serious?”

Mccree halted mid-chew and blinked at her with wide eyes and puffed cheeks, full of chips. He offered the bag of chips in his hand her way. She stared at him flatly. Slowly he retreated his hand and somehow swallowed whatever bits was in his mouth with two gulps and a tiny bit of additional crunching.

“What?”

“What? What do you mean what? I-” She shook her head. “How are you so calm? Don’t you remember what is happening?” She pointed at the screen for good measure. Mccree set aside his bag of chips and scooted closer to the monitor.

He stared at it, nonplussed, then stared at her, nonplussed. “Everything seems good. Have more faith in our girl, sweetheart.”

Angela glared at him. She did believe in Fareeha, she did. It was just that she also believed in the destructive properties of hard-light in the correct hands, like those of Vishkar’s security personnel for example, so she doesn’t think she can be blamed for the spike in her own heartrate each time a guard does more than tip their hat at Fareeha.

“Ooh, right. I forget you weren’t in Blackwatch.” Mccree breathed out and patted her shoulder twice in a gesture of comfort. Angela grumbled and dusted her shoulder off the corn chip crumbs he left on her jacket. “This is just another day for me. Missions like these were the norm.”

She knew that, the _whole_ world knew that by now. She huffed.

“Mccree-”

“ _What are you doing?_ ”

Angela swiveled her head so fast back to the screen her neck could’ve snapped. Fareeha was half-way into the area that they needed them to be. The janitorial cart was basically into the space, but Fareeha had yet to go through and a guard with a hand on his baton had sidled up to her with a none-too-happy expression on his face.

“ _I’m… cleaning? Is this not- um-”_

Fareeha started to speak in rapid Arabic, far too fast for Angela to comprehend. The man fired back as rapidly and Angela felt her heart rate rising and rising and her stomach clenching and curdling. Then, as quickly as the heat came it started to dwindle. Fareeha retreated out of the doorway and bowed to the man profusely as he walked off, grumbling about ‘new fucking cleaners and nobody fucking telling them anything'. Angela sank down on her seat and rubbed at her face, suddenly feeling exhausted though all she had been doing was sitting and watching.

“Ah shit.” Mccree cursed, running a hand through his locks. “Does this mean the plan is bust? Think you can try and flit in there again or too risky?”

“ _No, not bust and no need for that.”_ Fareeha responded as she mopped the floors outside the door. “ _She’s in.”_

“ _Yeah, Mccree. Like I said since the beginning-”_ Lena chimed in excited whisper. “ _Ksshht. I’m in_.”

Mccree slapped his own thigh and whistled high. “Lena, did you sneak out of the trash when Far was distracting that man with that frenzied Arabic of hers?”

_“Sure did. I may be trash to Fareeha, but I’m this mission’s treasure.”_

_“I never said that. I don’t think that.”_

_“You told me to get into the trash, love - same thing. Anyways, got to go!”_

Mccree laughed again and then smiled at Angela. “See? Mission is going just fine.”

Angela huffed, smacked Mccree upside the head (“Oi, what was that for?”) and continued to watch the screen. That was surely what one could call a close-call and not something to be proud of nor call ‘just fine’. Tracing a forefinger on Fareeha’s silhouette on screen, Angela sighed once more and prayed.

_____________________

There was a ruckus around the monitor that showed the live feed from Lena’s spy-tech spectacles. From what Angela could hear, the woman was living out a complete spy fantasy, twisting over lasers and zipping left and right to find the correct data entry point. If she hadn’t worked with Lena before, she would’ve disapproved the small giggles and jokes she could hear from the speakers. But she has and Angela knew by now it was a coping mechanism of Lena’s in high-risk situations.

“ _Lena doing okay_?”

“Yes. She’s putting a show as well I believe.” Mccree was squatting on top of his seat with one hand gripping the armrest and the other on his hat, leaning forward like he was watching the final lap at the races. Cheering and groaning at every move Lena did. Completely hyped by whatever she was doing.

And truthfully everyone was. They were all huddled at the monitor across, observing Lena’s progress in rapt attention and leaving her to stay with Fareeha. She could understand. Lena was trying to find the reason for all this trouble and Fareeha was stuck being a cover, literally mopping the floors as any old janitor would right now. When a chorus of groans (“Wrong one again? Really?”) came out Angela shook her head and clicked her tongue.

“I’m sorry to say this, but I think you’ll be cleaning for a little bit longer.”

“ _Keep cleaning? How? She’s taken so long I’ve cleaned this place spotless._ ”

Angela’s eyes crinkled at the sureness in her voice. “Did you now? Then what’s that spot by your foot?”

“ _Oh what?... Oh._ ” Fareeha set the mop aside to pick up a cloth that hung from a rack on the janitorial cart, and going down on her hands and knees she began to furiously scrub at the mark. Rubbing with far more vigor than necessary. “ _Out, damned spot. Out, I say._ ”

Angela giggled. “Did you just quote Macbeth?”

“ _Sshh, you’re not supposed to say the name of the play._ ”

Angela giggled once more, but as her laugh tapered off the small smile she donned began to slip. She propped her head on a hand and grumbled. Angela was conflicted. Fareeha was making it so easy to forget what had happened in the last twenty four hours. She’s been playful, cracking jokes and daringly flirtatious at times on this practically private commlink (considering that everyone had gone off to watch Lena instead, Angela assumed it was fair to say this). Things felt easy and it was tempting to never dredge up the incident between them, to not talk about it and move on. To pretend a proper conclusion had been reached in their first real conflict.

That wasn’t healthy though. And she had things to apologize for. So she would.

But later.

For now, she won’t. It wasn’t a choice made from selfish desire, a selfish want to play a sense of normalcy for a while longer though it certainly was a side-effect. It was instead a conclusion reached from the knowledge that discussing it now may make Fareeha wholly distracted and Fareeha shouldn’t be wholly distracted. Not when she was in a compound full of enemies.

“ _Hey, how’d you see the spot anyways_?”

“The various camera angles from the feeds fitted onto the Rubbermaid. I have eyes and ears everywhere, and they’re all trained on you.” She teased. “Like I said, I’m always watching you. I’ve always been.”

Fareeha shifted closer to the janitor cart and rubbed a thumb over one of the pinhole cameras.

“ _Always been? Hah, if I recall I was the one doing the watching over, not the other way around since the day we met._ _You watching over me is a recent trend._ ”

“Is it?”

“… _You were watching me too?_ ”

Good morals, good looking, a good woman. And though she usually wasn’t a fan of hardened looks on people’s faces, Fareeha was striking when her eyes were sharp. They pierced through her as effectively as when she gazed at her with soft eyes. Angela smiled beguilingly.

“I may have glanced at you a couple times since the start, mostly when you had your back to me. I was more subtle than you.” Fareeha made a choking sound and her smile widened. “Speaking of backs, your behind looks very good right now.”

“ _Angela._ ” A gentle mirth riddled Fareeha’s tone and sparkled in her eyes, brightening them right up. “ _You watching me is checking up on me or simply checking me out?_ ”

“Why can’t things be two things at once-”

An alarm blared from the speakers next to the screen, breaking her sentence with its shrill cry. Her eyes widened as two doors slid open on the various screens before her. The one behind Fareeha where a tuft of brown hair popped out and one on the far left, where purple uniforms and a chorus of primal yells poured out. She somehow found her voice as they reached for their holsters.

“Fareeha-!”

_____________________

This wasn’t good. She’d run out of bullets already and so did Lena.

She felt a tug on her elbow sleeve and reacted. Fareeha grabbed the offending hand, slammed the man that hand was attached to brutally to the wall, knocking him out and then throwing his listless body at the rest of their chasers. The frontlines went down as their comrade collided into them. The others vaulted over or side-stepped the mess and continued to blast hard-light at them. She ducked and cursed. Relentless. They were relentless. She and Lena have been running around like mice through the compound for a good half hour, scurrying through small corners and hiding behind furniture in attempts to get the slip on them, and they wouldn’t let up no matter what they tried. If any of them had signed up to work in HSI, she would've requested them to be on her team without hesitation. Not even blowing up the janitor cart had deterred them from giving chase and the shrapnel from the already broken translocator (riddled with holes from their initial fire) had been quite deadly. And painful. She got nicked by a few pieces herself and knew that first-hand.

“C’mon, we have to faster.” Lena hissed and her order sounded crisp in Fareeha’s earpiece. “Keep up, love. Don’t be so slow.”

Fareeha grunted and tried to speed up her pace. If she wasn’t running for her life and dodging shots of deadly light, she’d growl at Lena that she wasn’t _slow_. It wasn’t her fault that Lena was probably the fastest person alive and nobody else could compare in speed. Still, Fareeha pushed on, swinging her arms in a shoddy attempt to gain more momentum and follow through with Lena’s advice. It might be an old wives tale, but she remembered hearing that legs might move faster if arms did. Then again, she wasn’t sure if that really applied anymore once somebody had bionic legs instead of organic ones.

“They went left!”

“ _No, not left guys. You had to go right!”_ Winston screamed through the radio. “ _The only accessible Vishkar teleporter in that area is on the right! You have to go to Room 203!!”_

Fareeha took a quick glance back and blanched. Alright, she understood Winston well enough but how on earth were they supposed double back when a platoon of highly trained men were at their heels?

She felt fingers curl around hers. “Sorry about this. Don’t throw up.”

Fareeha furrowed her brows and looked at their conjoined hands. Throw up? Why would she-

The first thing Fareeha felt was a pull, like her insides were sucked into herself and the world blurred into black and blue. For a moment everything vanished. She was weightless. Then gravity slammed back, the world came back to view and Fareeha dry-hacked as Lena led her stumbling forward with a strong grip at the back of her collar to keep her from collapsing. Fareeha rubbed at her tearing eyes and gasped in attempt to control her breathing. What was that and what was this? The nausea she’s feeling was like nothing she had ever experienced in her thirty some years of being alive.

“Come _on_.” The rough pushes wouldn’t stop. Fareeha struggled to stop her vision from swaying. “You’re stronger than that. Chin up now, we’re almost there. See?”

Fareeha forced herself to get a grip and looked up. She blinked, wondering if she was seeing right.

Right in front of them was Room 203. The room that was supposed to be on the right, when they had gone left.

_____________________

Angela’s eyes widened. Both Fareeha and Lena blinked from existence in front of the men to behind. The last time she checked, Lena couldn’t recall and bring another person along. But that was definitely-

Mccree gasped next to her. “Did you just _see_ that, guys?!”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah I did. That’s uh- That’s new.” Winston bumbled out. “Definitely new.”

And Angela could only nod.

_____________________

The steel doors would not last much longer. Fareeha cocked her newfound hard light gun, a small little thing she picked up from one the men she knocked out in this room and raised it up at the doors. Her eyes vigilantly honed on the warping steel, watching at a particularly deep indent. If the Vishkar guards were going to blast through the door, the first hole would be there and large enough to shove a muzzle of a gun through. And Fareeha could tell that time was soon.

“How’s the portal going?!” She yelled as she crouched and continued to train her gun on metal doors. “Tell me it’s close to running!”

“Don’t stress me, I’m trying my best! I’m not a hacker by trade and-”

A series of connected beeps and a deep roiling sound. Behind Fareeha, a blueish light started to shine and in front of her Fareeha can see her shadow darken from its brilliance. Teleporter online. Finally. She backed away from the door slowly before turning to sprint and tell Lena to sprint straight through the portal as well. Or she was until she saw them, a figure in the background that would’ve gone unnoticed if not for the faint blue glow of the weapon in their hands, aimed up and ready to fire at Lena.

A shot rang before she could get a word out and her nostrils flared as red started to stain Lena’s front. Lena’s excited face turned pale and confused and when she looked down, there was fear. A fear that coursed through Fareeha as well. A through and through shot through the dead center of her the stomach and through the edges of the chronal accelerator. She heard the tell-tale crack, it sounded as loud as a whip. Her legs kicked faster and she bypassed Lena in an instant to fire at the dark space where the hidden figure lurked, shielding Lena with her frame simultaneously.

“Go through first. Get medical help. I’ll cover you.” She said tersely as she fired into the dark. She swore when she took a glance back and saw that Lena hadn’t moved, rooted in spot as she touched at her wound. Fareeha backpedaled into her hard. “Hey, snap out of it. Get through the portal. Go. I said GO!”

She swiveled as an oncoming shot came to her, waves of blue light. Not fast enough. It grazed her, burning the strings of her medical mask and flipping her hat clean off. Fareeha clutched her head and hissed at the second-degree burns that marred the thin skin near her temple.

“ _Lena! Winston carry her, we have to hurry to the med-bay_ ” She heard Angela say in the midst of the sharp pain she was experiencing. Lena was through. She shot at the control board of the teleporter. It was time for her to go as well. She backpedaled quickly, knowing that she had to get through soon before the gates closed.

“You are- Ms. Al-Jassim?”

The mention of her alias stopped her in her tracks. She reset her sights out into the dark where the voice came from and her nostrils flared as they stepped out where Fareeha could finally make them out. Her heart went into overdrive. Too much was going on. The teleporter was starting to blink, the steel doors were about to cave in, the alarms blaring, and the recognition in the eyes before her wasn’t something she could ignore.

Her instincts kicked in.

Fareeha lunged forward and swung.

_____________________

A pull on her shirt and she went flying through the air like the man she threw earlier, hurtling off to the wall. Fareeha was utterly disorientated as she soared through the air, flung by a strength only achievable by a hand made of metal, but as she sailed she had half a mind to hold tight, swivel and shield. Her back smacked straight into the wall while _she_ was safe in her arms, cushioned by her body as Fareeha felt the wind get knocked right out of her. A swear was ready to leave her when an explosion rattled her ears.

Fareeha raised her arms to protect her face and watched with squinted eyes as the teleporter exploded. A million smoldering shards went flying and the only thing stopping Fareeha from being riddled with a million stinging cuts was the glass chamber Jesse had graciously remembered to activate to encircle the teleporter before hitting the destruct button. With a groan and while the shards were still smoking, Fareeha sat up. Or attempted too before giving up and resigned herself to lay slouching. She massaged at her tender back with her right hand, wincing at the light sting she felt. “You could’ve just told me. I would’ve gotten out the way.”

“No time sweetheart.”

She grunted and smacked at her ears, wishing the ringing would soon stop. Mccree crouched next to her, sitting on his haunches with an introspective look on his face as he peered at the unconscious woman in her lap. He scratched at his beard with four fingers and hummed. “What're we going to do about this?”

Fareeha peered down as well and grimaced.

Hell if she knew.

All she was sure of was that Ms. Satya Vaswani would not be happy when she awoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can no longer tell you when the next update will be. I can't trust myself with that, and I can't be raising hopes like that.


End file.
